“Why didn’t you come after me, Mama? If you wanted me home so badly, why didn’t you say so?”
“You mean I should have come charging into town, dragged you home and had Eric Richards murdered?” Nola Ruth shook her head. “No thank you. That would have been history repeating itself. I didn’t want that.”
“Good night Mama.”
Nola Ruth stared silently at the television.
Tonight Libby didn’t want company, but it was too early to go to bed. She walked into the kitchen where Serena was washing the dinner dishes. “Can I help you with anything?” she asked.
The black woman looked up. “It looks like rain. You could take down the laundry from the line.”
Libby picked up the basket in the laundry room and headed out back. A hot wind laced with the smell of damp earth lifted the hair from her shoulders and rustled the tree branches framing the house. Rain was minutes away. Quickly she gathered armfuls of stiff, sweet-smelling clothes, dropping the clothespins efficiently into the bag hanging on the line. She piled the last shirt into her basket when the first drops fell. Lifting the clothes basket, she ran for the porch, barely making the shelter before the sky opened up in earnest. She left the basket for Serena and went upstairs to check on Chloe. She’d fallen asleep with the light on. Libby removed the book from under her daughter’s cheek, pulled the sheet over her and turned out the light.
It rained most of the night, a warm, thick, frog-strangling rain that forced vehicles off the road and kept everyone indoors, leaving behind a haze that colored the water and sky an indistinguishable blue-gray.
It was just past dawn the following morning. The boat’s wake was a shock of white in the unending grayness. Libby looked behind her at the disappearing dock. She broke the silence. “Where are we going?”
“To Assateague Island.”
Libby sat up. “That’s a day trip, Russ. I didn’t tell anyone we’d be gone that long.”
“We’ll be back by six. You can call from the boat.”
“I can hardly wait to explain that to my mother,” she mumbled under her breath.
Russ grinned. “I don’t have a hearing problem, Libby.”
“What you have is a lot of nerve.”
He shrugged. “I wanted to get you alone.”
She maneuvered her way to the front of the boat and sat down next to him. “Any particular reason?”
His arm circled her waist. “More than one. We’ll have to wait for the fog to bum off first.” He pressed his lips to her bare shoulder. “You smell good. It’s the same smell you had when you were a kid. What’s it called?”
“Mimosa.”
“Don’t ever change it.”
She turned to answer and never did. Her breath caught and the words left her, all her concentration on the man by her side. He faced the bay, his profile outlined against the brightening sky. Black lashes, unfairly long for a man, swept upward, framing steel-blue eyes. The lean, angular features of youth had firmed into scooped-out cheeks and jutting bones and a narrow, slightly beaked nose. Black hair fell across his forehead and curled at his neck, and his skin was dark from long days spent in the sun. He was handsome, in a masculine, undomesticated way, but it wasn’t just his features or even the startling warmth of his smile that gave him his appeal. It was the way he carried himself, the implied strength in his lean, ropy body, the loose-hipped, predatory way he moved, the arch of his eyebrow, the tightening of his jaw, the sudden narrowing of his eyes. There was no one like him. There never had been, not even Mitch, and he and Russ had been as alike as two people could possibly be. She’d been insane to think that Eric Richards could fill the gap.
Russ turned his head. “You’re awfully quiet. What are you thinking about?”
“You.”
“Come to any conclusions?”
She tangled her fingers in the hair at the back of his neck. “Do you know that you’re still beautiful?”
To her delight, he reddened. Russ never could take a compliment. “Thank you, ma’am, but I brought you out here to show you something that really is beautiful.” He pointed toward the shoreline. “Look.”
The sun had burned off the haze and the water was a pure gunmetal gray against the green marsh grass. Here, at the tip of the bay, pine forests grew down to the sand and only the hardiest survived. The less resilient succumbed to the salt, their white-encrusted roots face-up on the sandy shoreline, a testament to their struggle for survival. Libby felt the roll of the boat and saw the white foam of another wake cut across the inlet. The water was rich with life. Fish leaped from the depths. Insects skimmed across the surface, and black, biting flies feasted on overheated human flesh and salty blood.
In the distance, clammers, sunburned and bent over, harvested sandbars with their rakes. On the pilings, snowy egrets, brown terns, blue herons and gulls waited patiently for the humans to depart, intent on their share of leftovers from the oyster beds. The steady lapping of the water soothed Libby’s spirits. Comfortably cool, she leaned against Russ’s shoulder. “You love it here, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “So do you. I can’t believe you spent so much time in California.”
“California’s nice.”
“But it isn’t home.”
“No.”
He waited, giving her time to gather her thoughts.
“Out here on the water it’s an angler’s paradise,” she said at last, “and it’s green, so green it’s an assault to the eyes. I’d forgotten all about the green. It’s not something I thought about until I came back, green trees, green grass, green corn, every imaginable shade of green.” She looked up at the sky. “The heat does it. The heat and rain produces a country that God most likely modeled after heaven.”
He kept silent, afraid to break the mood. She had never talked like this to him before. She sounded almost poetic.
“They don’t have graveyards west of the Mississippi River,” she announced.
He laughed. “Of course they do.”
Libby shook his head. “Not real graveyards. Westerners hide their dead behind stone walls and wrought-iron gates. Not seeing the headstones is a way of denying age. Death won’t come if you aren’t reminded of it. Yuppies fight aging. It’s a veritable youth culture out there in California.”
“Were you surprised at the changes when you came home?”
“I wasn’t thrilled to see that every fast-food chain in America had discovered the Chesapeake. Who needs another hamburger stand?”
“Chloe wouldn’t agree with you.”
Libby laughed. “I wouldn’t expect her to. It’s called the price of progress.”
Several hours later, Assateague Island, Virginia’s famous wildlife preserve, materialized in the distance. The forest looked black against the white sand beach. Russ increased his speed and within minutes had pulled up close to the deserted shore. He dropped the anchor, picked up the lunch basket and held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
Libby stepped out of her shorts, adjusted her bathing suit and slipped into the water. She took Russ’s hand and followed him to the beach, splashing through the warm water.
“Shade or sun?” he asked when they had reached the deserted sand.
She looked speculatively at his skin. “You’re dark enough to stand a little sun, I think, and it’ll keep the bugs away.”
He dropped the basket where he stood and pulled her down beside him. “What’ll you have?” He rummaged through the food she’d packed. “If you aren’t hungry yet, we’ve got beer, iced tea and lemonade.”
“I’m hungry, all right,” she said, resting her hand on his shoulder.
Startled, he turned around, blue eyes wary, assessing the look on her face. What he saw surprised and delighted him. “Why, Libba Jane, I do believe you are hungry, but not for food.”
Her voice was husky, sensual. “You always were a fast learner.”
Russ stood and held out his hand. “Let’s move to the trees.”
�
�Why?”
“I’ll fry out here. My cheeks are whiter than a baby’s butt, or haven’t you noticed?”
Libby pulled the elastic out of her hair and shook it over her face to hide the wave of red creeping up from her chest. Suddenly she was off the ground, cradled in Russ’s arms. He walked toward the trees.
“After all this time, I can still embarrass you,” he murmured. “It’s amazing.”
She locked her arms around his neck. “What’s so amazing about it?”
“We’ve known each other since we were kids. I’m surprised that anything I could do would still make you self-conscious.”
“I think you like it,” she said. “For some reason it gives you pleasure to unsettle me. It always has.”
He set her down in the shade. She faced him, hands on her hips. “Am I right?”
His glance took in every detail of her trim, rounded figure. It always surprised him to realize how small she really was. From a distance she seemed taller. She was right. When they were kids, he had worked at shaking her poise. It made her softer, more vulnerable, and it made him feel stronger. Now it seemed childish. That air of calm reserve she wrapped around herself was nothing more than a shield against pain. He’d learned that just recently. It was important that she know it, too.
“There’s only one way I want to unsettle you now, Libba,” he said softly. “Will you let me?”
Her mouth went dry and she nodded. He stepped closer and slid his hands up her arms. Then he bent his head to her lips, moving against them until they parted.
Her skin was smooth and hot and the feel of her tongue in his mouth was driving him insane. He broke the kiss, breathing heavily, and pulled her against him. Her body molded bonelessly to his and the sensation of soft breast and taut nipple against his chest altered his breath. He wanted her and he didn’t want to wait.
His hands shook as he pulled down the straps of her bathing suit, sliding it down over her hips. She kicked it away and then moved back to him. He lifted her chin, holding her gaze while his hands sought the fullness of each breast, the dip of her waist, the smooth skin of her bottom and, finally, the heat between her thighs. When he kissed her again, it wasn’t slow and sweet like the first time, it rocked her with its need and she answered it with her own, her mouth and fingers playing over tight skin, lean planes and sharp angles, tasting moist, salty skin, teasing earlobes and pulse points and pebbled nipples, her palms seeking out the pleasure spots only she knew how to find, moving beneath the waistband of his trunks, touching the fullness of him, lightly, teasingly, until he gasped and gripped her wrist painfully.
“Stop,” he rasped in a voice that was low and winded as if he’d run a great distance.
His heart pounded against her chest. She waited, clinging to his shoulders. Seconds passed. She lifted passion-dark eyes to his face. His mouth was tight and careful and very close to hers.
“The hell with it.” He lowered her to the sand, his head and the width of his shoulders blocking out the canopy of trees. “There’s no reason to wait.”
She laughed and pulled him close. His lips opened over hers. Libby no longer felt the heat, the flies, the scrape of sand against her shoulder. There was nothing but this man, the sensation of lean, strong hands on her breasts and the heat radiating from the pit of her stomach to every nerve ending in her body.
They came together on the warm, salty sand of Assateague Island, hands clinging, hearts pounding, blood running, in as desperate and fierce and sensual a mating as that of the Spanish stallions credited with populating the island.
When he could breathe normally again, Russ opened his eyes. Libba was asleep. Her hair, a mess of sand and salt, cushioned her head. Wine-dark lashes rested against her cheeks and her skin was gold from a combination of sun and Beauchamp genes. Russ ran his finger over the slope of her shoulder. She had beautiful skin, clear and poreless, warm and dark, skin made to absorb the rays of the merciless Chesapeake sun.
He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. He felt her response. Slowly her eyes opened. When he took his mouth away, she smiled.
“Now I am hungry,” she said, “for food. But first I want to swim.” She stood, a fluid, graceful motion of loose sand and naked, golden skin. “Are you coming?”
“In a minute. You go first.”
“Too tired?” she teased him, lifting her arm to flip her hair over her shoulder.
“Not exactly,” he hedged, his eyes on the shape of her breasts.
She laughed and turned her back to walk toward the water.
Russ looked down at his lap. Fatigue was hardly his problem. He wondered if she realized that she hadn’t a stitch on, and then he wondered why he was embarrassed to have her see that he wanted her all over again.
After he regained sufficient control to join her in the water, the day passed too quickly. They swam to the sandbar, scooped up clams and ate them raw. Hiking around the half mile loop that made up the bird sanctuary, they spotted Canada geese, blue herons and terns lining the inlet. In the distance, nearly out of sight, the famous Chincoteague ponies, their stomachs rounded from marsh grass, grazed in the shadows.
Sated with sun and sand and food, Libby lay beside Russ, whose eyes were closed. She’d nearly drifted off to sleep when he spoke.
“You never told me when you changed direction.”
“How do you mean?”
“You wanted to be an actress. You’re a long way from that.”
She opened one eye. “It started with a volunteer assignment on Catalina Island. Have you ever heard of it?”
“It’s one of the Channels, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Chloe went to camp and I earned a few units. We were sent there because a necropsy on a bald eagle revealed that the bird was riddled with DDT, two hundred and twelve parts per million in its brain, to be specific. That’s a larger amount than any found in the wild for thirty years. After that, I was hooked. It was so much more important than anything else.”
Russ frowned. “DDT was banned twenty-five years ago. No one uses it.”
“That’s the point. An investigation showed that the entire food chain around the islands, from benthic worms and kelp bass to gulls, falcons and eagles are still lethally contaminated.”
“How can that be?”
“Apparently, from 1947 to 1971, Barnaby Chemical Corporation flushed DDT-contaminated waste into Los Angeles County sewers that empty into the ocean. The deposit covers thirty miles of coastal shelf. Everyone thought it would go away in time. But it didn’t. We know now that ecological problems will occur for another century because DDT is slowly leaking to the surface from the ocean floor. Most of the animals are surviving, but because of the poison accumulated in their bodies, their offspring die. None of the fifty bald eagles introduced to Catalina Island since 1980 have been able to reproduce. Their eggs contain ten times more DDT than the amount that causes fatal shell thinning. We’re talking about complete reproductive failure.”
A strange tingling began at the base of his spine.
“Because DDT is soluble in fat, it doesn’t break down or become diluted. It binds to silt on the ocean floor and converts to a chemical that is equally toxic. It clings to bottom sediment where shrimp, worms and fish burrow down, stir it up and store it in their fat.” Her face was very close, very intense. “This is the terrifying part. Each step up the food chain, the concentration in an animal’s fat roughly doubles. Two parts per million in a worm magnifies to four parts in a fish that eats the worm and eight parts in a bird that eats the fish. At the top of the food chain, predators absorb the biggest doses, predators like eagles and falcons and seals.”
“And people,” Russ said grimly. “People who eat fish caught in Pacific waters.”
Libby nodded. “People who eat contaminated fish caught in areas around San Pedro face an elevated cancer risk, a sharply elevated risk.”
“Is that what’s happening here?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure what is happening here, only something’s not adding up. The reports from the lab don’t indicate enough toxins in the water to be dangerous at all, and yet there’s a fishing alert, crabs have mutated and people are dying of leukemia. It doesn’t make sense, and Cliff Jackson is deliberately stonewalling me. I don’t know what to do.”
Russ sat up. “Is the Barnaby company being prosecuted?”
“There was a lawsuit pending.”
“What happened?”
“A judge threw it out. He said the statute of limitations had passed.”
“Christ.”
Libby nodded. “Exactly.”
“Whoever is contaminating the bay is in trouble. It won’t be easy to stop them. It might even be dangerous.”
“I’ve thought of that, but I can’t start a riot based on speculation. I need test results and so far I don’t have them.”
“When you asked for help at the meeting, you didn’t mention that.”
She stared straight ahead. “No.”
“Why not? People’s lives could be at risk.”
She wiped the sand off her hands, her thighs and her knees, anything to keep from looking at him. Even now, after all this time, it was painful to know he disapproved of something she’d done. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation,” she began slowly. “The food chain is compromised. Women are giving birth to babies with horrible deformities.” She lifted her eyes to his face. “Sterility and cancer are on the rise. People are dying. All of our lives are at risk. Just because no one is pointing a shotgun doesn’t mean the end result isn’t the same. Do you really think those men don’t know they need to be careful?”
She was right. It was a hell of a situation. “How difficult is it to find out what’s going on here?”
“About as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.”
“In other words, it’s not gonna happen.”
“It could,” Libby hedged, “if we’re lucky or if someone responsible is honest and puts two and two together.”
“It doesn’t sound good.”
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