Mindy entered, but stopped short when she saw Beth’s companion.
“Melinda Sue,” Bram greeted her. “I see your timing is still impeccable.”
“Hello, Abraham,” Mindy replied gravely, returning his formal address. “It didn’t take you long to find Beth.”
“Actually, she found me,” Bram said, retrieving his glass from the mantel. “Don’t let me put a damper on the festivities. I’ll go and refill my empty glass.” He brushed past Beth with a single electric glance and left the room.
Beth sank into the leather chair next to the fireplace.
“How did it go?” Mindy asked.
Beth couldn’t reply.
“Is it still the same?” Mindy persisted.
Beth nodded dumbly, and then said, “It is for me.”
“What did he say?” Mindy demanded.
Beth spread her hands. “A lot of things. You know how he talks, as if he were making fun of himself and everyone else at the same time. It’s impossible to tell how much of what he says he really means.”
“Some things never change,” Mindy observed.
“He still hates Anabel and doesn’t have much use for his father.”
“Is he going to stay and run the show?”
“It sounds like it, but not out of any feeling of love. He seems to regard it as his duty.”
Mindy shook her head wonderingly. “He’s a difficult one to figure. Only Bram would turn his back on the most profitable tobacco concern in the Connecticut Valley to go off to sea. It’s like Toby Tyler running away to join the circus.”
“My father always suspected there was more to it than a desire on Bram’s part to see the world.”
“What do you mean?” Mindy asked, puzzled.
Beth stood again, running her fingers along the beveled edge of her father’s desk. “Well, when Bram first left I was just a kid, but I used to hear Dad talking about it to my mother before she died. Dad always thought family problems drove Bram out the door.”
“That’s hardly news. Everybody knew that he and Anabel didn’t get along once his father married her.” Mindy’s tone changed. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy for Bram; he was a teenager and his father had a bride only a few years older than he was,” she said sympathetically.
“Did you ever hear much about Bram’s real mother?” Beth asked.
“No. He’s supposed to look like her, though. Do you remember Jacinta, the housekeeper they had before Anabel let her go?”
“Of course. She went to school at night and she’s a nurse at Johnson Memorial now.”
“Right. Well, she knew the first Mrs. Curtis, and according to Jass she was a real beauty, dark like Bram, with skin like a camellia. That’s a direct quote: ‘como la camella’ is what she said.”
“And is Anabel divorcing the old man now, or what?” Beth wanted to know.
Mindy shrugged. “That’s anybody’s guess. All I know is that she’s gone. Hal says she’s probably trying to stay married to Bram’s father and outlast him. She’ll get a bigger share of the estate that way.”
Hal was Mindy’s husband, a lawyer much given to voicing such opinions. He was a patent attorney for a Hartford corporation, however, so Beth would not be competing with him for private business.
“That reminds me,” Mindy said. “Hal sent me to find you. Marion went upstairs to change and the groom needs help with the rest of the wedding presents.”
Preoccupied with thoughts of Bram, Beth went with Mindy to supervise the distribution of the booty.
* * *
It was hours later, after the wedding couple had left and Beth was seeing the last stragglers out the door, when she encountered Bram again. She thought he’d gone home and, disappointed, had stopped looking for him. But just as she came back inside the house he stepped from the shadows under the stairwell.
Beth froze, her eyes locked with his.
“I’m not going to bite you,” Bram said quietly. “Don’t look like that.”
“How do I look?”
“Like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car.”
She hadn’t realized that her reaction to him was so obvious. “I’m sorry,” Beth said neutrally. “I was startled to see you. I thought that you had left.”
“You mean you hoped that I had left,” Bram amended.
Beth wasn’t going to touch that, so she said instead, “I wish your father had been able to come with you today. Please give him my regards.”
“I will. He’s still confined to bed most of the time. He is recovering from the stroke, but progress is slow.”
Having dispensed with the amenities, they stared at one another.
“Why are you still here?” Beth finally blurted out baldly.
Bram laughed softly, an intensely intimate, masculine sound that transformed the silent hall. Beth began to wish fervently that some of the guests had stayed a little longer.
“I’m surprised law school didn’t make you more diplomatic,” Bram replied. “Aren’t you supposed to learn subtlety there?”
“Sometimes I prefer the direct approach,” Beth said coolly. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Bram pulled loose the knot of his tie and opened the top buttons of his collar. The casual gesture disturbed Beth inordinately, calling up images of the last time she had seen it. Then he had taken off his shirt and she had caressed him, unable to believe that he desired her. Beth Forsyth, coltish teenager, had changed into Bethany Forsyth, J.D., but the searing memory remained, triggered by the innocent sensuality of his actions. Or maybe not so innocent, Beth thought. There was a sexual undertone to his demeanor with her that kept Beth constantly off balance, and she resented the advantage it gave him.
“... just wanted to see you again,” he was saying.
“Why?”
“We were interrupted before, and there are some things I’d like to know.”
Beth eyed him warily. “Such as?”
“Why haven’t you gotten married?”
“I’m twenty-six, Bram, I think I have a little time left,” Beth answered sarcastically. “And what makes you so sure I want to get married?”
“You must have had some offers,” he said.
“A few. Is it any of your business?”
“I wondered why you didn’t accept one of them.”
Because I could never duplicate the experience I had with you, Beth thought. Aloud she said, “How do you know I’m not married? I’ve been away, I could have a husband somewhere. Female attorneys frequently keep their maiden names.”
“You’re not wearing a ring,” Bram observed.
“So? Maybe I don’t like to wear one.” Why was she doing this? Simply because he was so sure of himself? Just once she would like to crack that smooth, charmingly detached facade. But perhaps she already had, just once, a long time ago.
He shook his head with deliberate conviction. “You would wear a ring,” he said.
She faced him down, infuriated by his accurate reading of her character. “It must be wonderful to know everything,” she said tightly.
“Not everything. Just you.”
Beth whirled away from him, confused. “What are you talking about? We shared a few hours one night when you’d had too much to drink. From that you’re able to deduce my views on life?” She wouldn’t look at him.
“Sometimes you can tell more about a person from one night than you can tell about another person you see every day.” His voice was low, controlled.
“That sounds like romantic nonsense,” Beth replied crisply.
He moved to stand behind her. “That is undoubtedly the first time I’ve been accused of being a romantic,” he said, amused.
This conversation was veering out of control. She shouldn’t be talking like this with Bram; she was on the verge of revealing too much. Beth composed herself and turned to look at him.
“It’s late,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be getting home?”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Are you
throwing me out?” he inquired.
Beth caught her breath at the antagonism that flared in his face, in his tone. The hair-trigger temper that had been his trademark since childhood lay just beneath the surface, ready to explode with the right provocation. She wasn’t going to supply it.
“Not at all,” she answered evenly. “I know you’re busy and I didn’t want to keep you.”
He snorted. “Busy with what?”
“Taking over Curtis Broadleaf. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”
He sighed. “Oh, yes, I’ve been accepted back into the fold now that Daddy is flat on his back. He’s turning me into quite the executive. I’m even thinking of joining the country club.”
“That’s the life you should have had all along, Bram,” Beth said quietly.
“What if it’s not the life I want!” he said fiercely. Then, seeing her alarmed reaction, he sighed and added wearily, “Never mind. I’ll get lost while you tend to things here. I see the troops have left you with quite a mess.”
“I have a crew coming in tomorrow morning to clean,” Beth said.
“Admirable foresight,” he commented.
Beth shot him a sidelong glance. Was he needling her again?
He knew what she was thinking and held up a hand. “I mean it. Anabel always sponsored mammoth debauches and then ran around screaming about the debris for days. Your approach is much more efficient.”
Beth couldn’t resist the opening he’d provided. “How is Anabel?” she asked carefully.
“Dying, I hope. Or at least suffering from a debilitating disease.”
The reply was so unexpected that Beth laughed. He apparently wasn’t big on pleasantries.
“You find my viciousness amusing?” Bram asked, cocking his head.
“You’re so outrageous, Bram. I know you don’t mean that.”
His lips twitched. “All right,” he relented. “Maybe I don’t wish her dead. But if I could lock her in a vault in Palm Beach, I would.”
“Does your father miss her?”
“About as much as he would miss Typhoid Mary.”
“He must have loved her once.”
Bram’s mouth thinned. “He was infatuated with her once.”
“She was very pretty.”
Bram inclined his head slowly, as if the admission were wrung from him. “Yes, she was.”
“I’m glad she left so that you were able to come home,” Beth said simply.
His head shot up, and his gaze became intent. “Why do you say that?”
Beth blinked, rattled. “Just because I know you two didn’t get along.”
He watched her a moment longer, and then nodded, satisfied. He walked past her to the door, stopping to lift a curl of dark brown hair from her neck.
“Good night, mouse,” he said lightly, and left. Beth sagged against the door after she had closed it, blinking back tears.
Mouse. He had called her that the night her father found them together, after she’d told Bram she’d performed the part of a mouse in the school play.
It was so unfair of him to remember that, and use it on her like a weapon.
Her fists clenched. She didn’t understand why after all this time Bram had finally acceded to his father’s wishes and come home. It was clear he wasn’t happy about his return, or the role his father wanted him to play. Bram was the last person on earth who could be coerced into doing something against his will. He had always done exactly as he pleased. What was going on?
Beth straightened and walked through the house, ending up, as she had known she would, in her father’s study. Unbidden, the memories washed over her again.
Bram had spoken of their time together with clarity, seeming to remember as much as Beth did. How could it have been that important to him? He was an experienced, well traveled man. Beth didn’t even want to think about the number of women he must have known during his seafaring days.
Beth settled in the chair next to the fireplace and stared at the picture of herself framed on her father’s desk, lost in the past.
CHAPTER 2
It was the fourth of July, three months before Beth’s seventeenth birthday. Her father was hosting his annual barbecue for half the valley, and Beth had invited some of her schoolmates. All during the long summer afternoon they’d splashed in the pool and lounged around the patio, a small clutch of teenagers adrift in a sea of her father’s friends. As the sun set in purple and orange splendor over the tobacco fields of northern Connecticut, Beth was ensconced in a deck chair by the diving board, sipping a soda. When she finished it Jim Hammond arrived and handed her another one, which she took and sniffed warily. Beth had a strong suspicion Jim was trying to get her drunk. He considered himself to be her boyfriend, a subject on which they had a difference of opinion. Jim sat next to her, and Beth leaned forward to see past him to the crowd surrounding her father.
Carter Forsyth liked to entertain. A prominent accountant with a firm in Hartford, he opened his house to business and social acquaintances three or four times a year for gatherings like this one. He said that it helped to ease the loneliness created by his wife’s death, and he might as well see his friends because he would never remarry.
Beth knew that she was his main concern in life. Marion, her older sister, was home for the summer, but during the year she was away at college. Marion was a solid and sensible girl who would make a good marriage and settle down to respectability. But their father considered Beth to be another story. He saw rebellion in her individuality and stubbornness in her determination to go her own way.
Feeling a pang of guilt, Beth got up and went over to her father, skirting the edge of the pool and walking barefoot onto the brick patio.
“Can I get you anything, Daddy?” she asked. “You’ve been looking after everyone else.”
“No, thanks, honey,” her father replied. “Just go into the garage and turn on the pool lights, if you would. It’ll be getting dark soon.”
As Beth turned to obey, she caught sight of a new arrival standing on the lawn. Deeply tanned, wearing jeans and a broadcloth shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbows, a young man with dark, wavy hair and a grin that flashed in the fading light stood talking to her sister. Instantly alert, Beth watched them for a moment and then backtracked to her father.
“Daddy, who is that?” she inquired, tugging on his sleeve.
Her father put aside his martini shaker and glanced at her. “Who?”
“That dark man, the one talking to Marion.” Beth pointed surreptitiously.
Carter followed the direction of his daughter’s hidden finger. “Oh. Why honey, don’t you recognize him?”
Beth shook her head mutely. If she had seen him before, she would have remembered.
“I guess that’s right,” Carter said, “you were too young when he left. That’s Bram Curtis, Joshua’s son.”
The name rang a bell, presenting a roll call of hair-raising stories associated with Mr. Curtis’s sole offspring. Beth narrowed her eyes, trying to remember.
“I think he only came back to the house because Joshua and Anabel are away,” Beth’s father went on. “He never shows up when that woman is around. It’s a damn shame. He’s a wanderer on the face of the earth, that boy.”
“Is he the one Momma used to talk about?” Beth asked.
Carter nodded. “She rather liked him.”
It was coming back to Beth now. Her mother had always said that the Curtis boy had “gone to sea,” in a wistful tone that suggested that she might have liked to go to sea herself. It was such a beautiful expression, calling up images of a sky filled with foreign constellations like the Southern Cross, and phosphorescent waves sparkling with St. Elmo’s fire. Beth wanted to meet the man who had gone to sea.
“He sent me the kindest note when she died,” Carter added. “I knew he was back at the house, so I called and asked him to come over today.”
“That was nice of you, Daddy.”
“Go and put those lights on
for me, Beth,” her father said.
Beth did as he asked, and when she got back Bram Curtis was gone. Marion still occupied the same spot, chatting with a middle aged woman Beth didn’t know.
Beth stifled her annoyance. It was just like her sister to let somebody like that get away. Marion might be three years her senior, but when it came to men she was as dense as a tree.
Beth waited until the older woman drifted away, and then corralled Marion.
“What happened to Bram Curtis?” she demanded
Marion glanced at her, startled. “I don’t know. What do you want with him?”
“I wanted to meet him.”
“I’d watch out if I were you. He seems nice enough, but some of the things people say about him...” She shuddered delicately. “He scares me.”
Beth sighed impatiently. Marion was afraid of everything. Scaring Marion was the highest recommendation Curtis could have; it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t in the same league with Marion’s colorless college boyfriends, who put Beth to sleep.
“Did he go into the house?” Beth demanded.
Marion glanced around the lawn. “He might have. I don’t see him out here. He knows Mindy’s family; he could have gone looking for her.”
“Thanks, Marion, you’ve been a big help,” Beth said sarcastically.
“Well, I’m not his bodyguard,” Marion retorted. “And you’d better watch yourself; you know Daddy wouldn’t like...”
Beth walked away, not staying to hear what Daddy wouldn’t like. Daddy didn’t like much of anything Beth did and it had never stopped her.
Beth changed direction and slipped into the powder room just inside the door when she saw Jim heading her way. If she remained secluded long enough maybe he would amuse himself elsewhere.
She looked into the mirror over the sink and assessed her reflection. Not bad, she thought, not half bad. Deep brown hair midway down her back, large blue eyes, pale skin lightly tanned for the summer, a mature figure encased in a two-piece bathing suit and a terry coverup. She decided to go upstairs and change into something more appropriate for the evening, and peeked out the door to make sure the coast was clear.
Jim was gone. She made her way stealthily to the stairs, and was about to climb them when she glanced into the kitchen and saw the bottle of gin standing on the counter. It gave her an idea.
Reckless Moon Page 2