Angela's Affair (Pacific Waterfront Romances, #13)

by Vanessa Grant

  She went up the ramp to her van, opened the door and slid in. It was stuffy inside, the sun beating through the windshield. She opened the window and cranked the key, pumping the throttle hard to start the temperamental engine.

  She saw him coming up the ramp, not hurrying. He walked deliberately between the van and the small car beside it. He put one hand on her door, his fingers inside, only an inch away from her shoulder. She felt her heart give an erratic, disturbed thud.

  “What’s your name?” he demanded. His voice had lost the anger now. He sounded indifferent.

  “Angela Dalton.” There was no reason not to tell him.

  “Dalton?” He looked down at her hand on the steering wheel. “Is that your married name?”

  She stared at her own hands. The wedding ring. Time you took it off, Barney had said more than once. She was glad she hadn’t, because crazy though it seemed, she wanted barriers, walls, to protect her from this stranger. She curled her fingers more tightly around the steering wheel.

  “Yes. That’s my married name.”

  “Where’s your husband?”

  This was a man who always got his way. She turned her head and tried to see in his eyes what he wanted. What had he said back there on the boat? That he had thought about ravishing her? She gulped and jerked her eyes away from him. Where was her usual cool mask, her ability to radiate “no” without words?

  “Where is he?”

  “Do you want to meet him?” She pushed her foot down to make the engine roar. He jerked, as if he thought she might shove the van into gear and take his hand off. Her husband. Barney was right, she should have taken Ben’s ring off years ago. She shook off her natural tendency to tell the truth and said on a rush, “Come to the shop and I’ll introduce you to him.”

  She twisted to look through the back window of the van as she shifted into reverse. Damn! There was the bow of a sailboat just coming into view on the road behind. Why did they have to drive the Travelift past right now? A big blue framework on wheels, the Travelift picked boats out of the water, hung them from slings attached to the blue arms, and slowly, so slowly, moved the boats around the waterfront area. Usually the boats were moved from the water to the shipyard, but sometimes they crawled along the road, the big Travelift tires crunching slowly, taking the boats elsewhere. Right now two boats were parked outside Dalton Welding and Canvas, blocked up to be worked on by Barney and his welder.

  Angela bit her lip and watched the slow progress of the lift and boat through her back window. She could feel the man beside her, stole a glance and was relieved to find that he had straightened up to watch. He wasn’t touching her van.

  There were no other vehicles around, no hand on her door to stop her. She reversed and turned, just clearing the wheels of the lift. He was watching her, or perhaps he was watching the lift. She forced herself not to look, concentrating on the yellow sailboat in the lift, the mossy stuff hanging down from the underwater hull, still dripping. When there was room, she pushed the van into forward gear and drove slowly between the crawling lift and the line of parked cars.

  He had told her to leave the dodger as it was, and although she’d marked the alterations that would allow the sail handling lines to pass through, she had left without taking the dodger. If she went back tomorrow, the boat would probably be gone, and the job not properly finished.

  All right, he had won that round. Angela was a perfectionist in her work, but she didn’t think she was prepared to face Kent Ferguson again. Okay, but she was darned if she would send a bill! The deposit Charlotte had paid would cover the materials, so she was just out her labor and Barney’s to make the stainless steel bows. She’d talk to Barney, and he would go along with her. No invoice, and Charlotte might some day realize that the dodger was not paid for. That would bother her, might even bring her back.

  Harvey was not at the shop when Angela got there. She dialed the house and when he answered she blurted, “Dad, there’s a man down at Charlotte’s boat. He’s her—her brother.” Oh, God! Charlotte’s big secret and she had almost blurted it out as if it were common knowledge. She added quickly, “He’s come to take the boat. She sent him a fax, asked him to come down here and clear up everything, take the boat back to Vancouver.”

  Harvey was speechless for a moment, then he said decisively, “I’m going down there to talk to him.”

  She wished she could make herself go too, a buffer between Harvey and Kent Ferguson, but she did not want to see that man again, so she started laying out red Sunbrella on her cutting table, preparing for cutting sail covers. She would be ahead of schedule on the covers because she had scheduled today for Charlotte’s final adjustments.

  She jerked when she heard the bell that signaled the door opening, but when she looked up, it was only Barney’s wife Sally with Jake.

  “Barney here?” Sally was short and roundish and pretty, with blonde fly-away hair and an absentminded smile that Barney had fallen for when he was only eighteen. She had her son’s little hand firmly in hers, her other hand resting on the round swelling of late pregnancy. Jake tugged, wanting freedom, but Sally looked around first, searching for trouble her six-year-old son might get into.

  “Barney’s welding in the shop,” warned Angela. “So best leave Jake here with me while you go in. Coffee’s on,” she added, jerking her head toward the coffeepot in the corner.

  Released, Jake made straight for the cutting table, his small hands curling around its edge. “C’n I help, Aunt Angie? I like red.” His straight, blonde hair was almost white, topping a thin, serious face that held startling, wide brown eyes.

  Angela looked around quickly, knowing Jake was best kept occupied. “Why don’t you roll up that red binding tape, over there on the rack?” The binding was streaming off the roll because Angela had been measuring it, but better to have Jake rolling it back up than grabbing the fabric she was cutting.

  Sally, seeming shorter than usual with her body rounded by pregnancy, waddled over to the coffeepot and looked at it, decided, “No, I’d better not, but when I’ve had this little hellion, I’m going to drink five gallons of coffee.”

  “You’ll be nursing,” Angela reminded her with a smile. “How about some herb tea? Why don’t you plug in the kettle and I’ll join you in a minute. What did the doctor say?”

  Her sister-in-law grimaced. “Two weeks more, and too bad if I’m dying in the heat.” Sally shook her head, her pale blue eyes rueful. “The man had the nerve to say it wasn’t a very hot summer, that it was my body thermostat gone haywire.” She placed both hands on her swollen stomach and muttered, “Why didn’t Barney and I time this better? It was the same with Jake. Far better to be pregnant in the winter, you know. The warmth comes in handy.”

  Angela smiled, knowing that Sally and Barney had been trying for a second baby ever since Jake’s birth. Summer or winter made no difference to either of them.

  When Sally went into the shop to find Barney, Angela concentrated on the sail covers, cutting the long pieces with one eye on Jake.

  “I want to sew,” announced Jake when he had the binding coiled up.

  “Okay. How about red?”

  His eyes lit up. “Can I make a sail cover? Like you do?”

  She set up red thread on the lightweight machine, then gave Jake two long scraps of cuttings from the floor. He had known how to operate her machine for almost a year, and although he sewed in ragged circles, he didn’t often get her thread snarled up, so she didn’t mind. She liked working with her nephew around. If her baby had lived...

  She pushed that thought away, knowing it was pointless to cry for what was gone. Instead, she folded the two long pieces for the mains’l cover and began laying out for the matching jib bag.

  The door crashed open again and the uniformed UPS man hurried in. She signed for two rolls of fabric and three boxes, then gave him the box of canvas shirts she was shipping to a sporting goods store in Seattle. If she got many more orders for the clothing line she was devel
oping, she would have to find someone to help with the sewing.

  She was cutting when the door opened again. She was relieved to see Harvey back.

  “Dad, how—”

  She broke off, seeing the man behind Harvey, then heard the slick sound of her own scissors sliding through fabric. She looked down. Darn! She had cut straight into the piece. She would either have to throw it out and cut anew, or modify the bag to make the extra seam appear to belong.

  Jake stood up from the machine, pulling the red pieces out, and Angela said automatically, “Jake, honey, cut off the thread. It’s still connected.”

  He bent his thin body over the task. “It’s a cover for a baby sailboat,” he announced to his grandfather. He put it down in front of Angela, on top of the ruined sail bag piece, and decided, “I want a red fisherman’s shirt.”

  “Another one?” asked Harvey. He was smiling, although his face was strained and gray. Behind him, Kent Ferguson had stopped, his eyes taking in everything from the mess of cuttings on the floor around Angela’s feet to Jake’s sun-bleached mop of hair.

  “Kent,” Harvey said, his gesture inviting the stranger inside their shop. “This is my daughter-in-law, Angela. She runs this place, really. Estimates and canvas work, and scheduling for the rest of us.”

  “We’ve met,” said Kent briefly. “Down at Charlotte’s boat.”

  Angela swallowed, staring at him. What was it about the man that bothered her so much? He should be the one to look out of place, with his city suit and shining black shoes, hard blue eyes. Instead, he made her very aware of the disorganized chaos around her.

  Jake pressed against her, staring at the stranger. Harvey added, “And my grandson, Jake. Jake’s got a wardrobe of fisherman’s shirts you wouldn’t believe.” Harvey made a gesture to a display rack near the door. “Angie’s started this line of boating clothes, Sailing Rags, she calls them. They’ve become all the rage around here. She can hardly keep up with the demand.”

  Angela wished Harvey would stop talking. Why was Kent Ferguson here? If Harvey had invited him to stay up at the house, she was going to go somewhere else. A trip to Seattle, or anywhere. There was no way she could sleep if that man was under her roof!

  “...if you guys can spare me,” Harvey was saying.

  “What?” Angela had missed something. All she could see was Kent’s eyes, laughing silently as if he knew she didn’t have her mind on what was happening. “What did you say, Dad?”

  “I said I’d take Charlotte’s boat up to Vancouver. Kent needs someone to deliver it, and I could use a couple of days off. I’ll leave on Sunday, should be back by Tuesday.”

  “Oh.” She knew why he was doing it. Taking Charlotte’s boat would be a link with the woman he loved. Had he talked to Kent about the relationship between himself and Charlotte? She realized both men were staring at her and said quickly, “I’ll reschedule the welding on the tugboat.”

  “Or get Barney to do it,” suggested Harvey, adding to Kent, “Barney’s my son. Good boy. Not a boy now, of course. He’s pretty well taken over the welding and engineering from me. I just do a bit to keep my hand in.”

  “I’m going to be a welder,” announced Jake suddenly. His voice was so quiet that Angela thought no one had heard but her.

  “Like your father?” asked Kent. The man must have incredible hearing.

  “Yeah,” agreed Jake, clutching the tiny boat sail cover to his chest, staring at Kent. “Like my dad.”

  Angela wished Kent would stop watching her. He was talking to Jake, then reaching for his checkbook to give Harvey a check to cover expenses getting the boat up north. Harvey shook his head and Angela thought it must hurt him to think about taking money to do something for Charlotte.

  “Forget it,” said Harvey. “That’s far too much. It’s only going to cost the fuel to fill up Misfit’s tanks. I don’t want anything for my time. I haven’t been sailing in a long time, it’ll be a pleasure.”

  She gathered the fabric together and announced, “I’m going upstairs to stitch this.” She had another commercial machine up there, the one she normally used for doing the zigzag over-stitch on sail covers and dodgers.

  “Me, too,” announced Jake, following her up the stairs.

  Upstairs, she dropped the fabric onto the big sewing table and stared at it until Jake urged her, “Aunt Angie, aren’t you going to sew? You said you were going to sew.”

  “Yeah.” She was sorry about Charlotte, for Harvey’s sake, but it would be an incredible relief when that man walked out of Dalton Welding and Canvas. Once Misfit was gone, there was no reason Kent Ferguson would ever have to come back to Port Townsend.

  “Who is he?” asked Jake, as if he were following her thoughts.

  “He’s Charlotte’s brother.” She added, “And I don’t like him.”

  Jake sat on a roll of canvas, propping his elbow on his knee and dropping his chin into his palm. “Why don’cha like him?”

  “I don’t know.” He made her feel flustered, too aware of him as a man. It was years since she had felt like that. She picked up the red Sunbrella and started to smooth it, matching the pieces that would be sewn together. “Because he watches me all the time,” she decided. She knew she was over-reacting, but it was an instinctive response, something chemical. Kent Ferguson was trouble, and she certainly didn’t need trouble in her life. Not ever again.

  “I don’t like him either,” announced Jake loyally.

  Harvey’s boots trooped up the stairs a few minutes later.

  “Is he gone?” asked Angela.

  “Hmm. Gone to the airport. He’s got a jet there, waiting to take him back to Vancouver.”

  “He would.” It fit the clothes. Money, but of course there had to be money somewhere to pay for the way Charlotte wandered around at will.

  Harvey sank down beside Jake. “He doesn’t know where Charlotte is.” His brown eyes filled with worry. “I’ve just got to believe that she’ll come back sometime. I really don’t know how to start looking for her.”

  Only three years ago Harvey had lost Anna, and they had all thought he would never smile again. Then Charlotte had come breezing into port, the fifty-year-old bombshell with her laughter and her easy warmth. Harvey had started to smile again, to laugh. Then he had asked Charlotte to marry him.

  “Marriage,” Charlotte had confessed to Angela out on Mystery Bay. “It scares hell out of me. I almost tried it twice, Angie, but—I just couldn’t do it. Not when it came down to the wire. What if—what if I got myself tied to a jerk. What if—“

  “Harvey’s not a jerk,” Angela had said that day.

  “No. Oh, no, he’s not! But I’m a coward, I always was. I—if a relationship’s going to work, it’s got to be founded on truth, doesn’t it?”

  Angela had nodded, although she was no expert. She had seen love, happiness, but it had always been other people. Barney and Sally. Harvey and Anna. Her own love, the one time she tried, had turned to ashes.

  So Charlotte had run away, because she could not bring herself to share the truth with Harvey, and now Harvey said, “I wish I knew why she felt she had to run away.”

  Angela bit her lip. Should she tell him? “What about her brother?” She could not bring herself to say his name. Kent. Her mind whispered it, which frightened her because she could feel his eyes on her, the way he had stared the whole time she was downstairs. “Couldn’t he find her, if he wanted to?”

  Harvey sighed. “Maybe. He doesn’t know where she is now, but it’s a contact anyway. We’ve got his address, and I’m going to leave a letter for Charlotte on the boat, in case she comes back to it. And I’ll leave a letter with him, too, for her. Where the devil can she be, Angie? Where’s she gone?”

  “Can I come?” Jake asked suddenly. He was assembling scraps on the floor, putting them together as if they were a jigsaw puzzle. “Grandpa, can I came sailing with you? My dad says I’m a good sailor. I’ll work hard.”

  Chapter Three

 
; On August the first Kent flew to Vancouver Island to meet with the architect he’d retained for the new development. He returned to Vancouver in time to go over the specifications on the North Shore job with the contractor. Then he flew to Ottawa, where he sweltered through two humid days of meetings with a government committee on urban renewal.

  Charlotte’s fax came while he was in Ottawa. “I’m at the San Francisco Sheraton. Please forward mail. Charlotte.” By the time Kent got back to the office, Patricia had already forwarded the mail.

  Kent would have expected her to turn up further away. When she left the lawyer from New York, she had surfaced in Tokyo. After that affair with the Mexican two years ago, she’d run to Cyprus. San Francisco was close enough that she might not be sure she should be running. Was Angela right? Did Charlotte love Harvey Dalton?

  Trying to second-guess his sister was impossible. Love? What the hell did the word mean, anyway? Did it mean Charlotte in another mess?

  Kent picked up the telephone to call his accountant and somehow ended up dialing his pilot instead, ordering the Lear made ready for another flight to Port Townsend. Harvey Dalton was the steadiest thing that had turned up in Charlotte’s life in a long time. Maybe he was just what Charlotte needed.

  He knew his actions weren’t making a lot of sense. He never interfered in Charlotte’s life, just paid the bills and arranged to have the scattered pieces picked up. There was nothing different this time...only the woman who had been haunting his dreams. Strangely erotic dreams for a man who didn’t have time for relationships—especially with married women.

  That was stupid, asking for trouble, but if it wasn’t Angela Dalton drawing him back to Port Townsend, why didn’t he simply call Harvey Dalton on the telephone and pass on Charlotte’s address?