Last Chance at Love

by Gwynne Forster

  “First chance I get, I’m going to take him to meet Connie, and I want to meet some of his friends. That should give us a better take on each other.” She wrapped her arms around her pillow, said her prayers, and drifted off to sleep.

  She had dressed when Jake knocked on her door the next morning, bringing in their breakfast tray. He greeted her with a kiss on her lips.

  “I hope you slept well. I noticed you got your bags out on time.”

  Why was he... She realized that he was making an effort to be less intimate, to give her the emotional space she had implied she needed.

  “I slept like a log. You weren’t here to rock me to sleep, but the ship did a reasonable job of it. At one time, I wondered if we were headed into another storm.”

  “Maybe it shifted course or something. Want some more coffee?” he asked her. “Better eat all of that. Our plane doesn’t leave till three. I’ll have a car waiting for us, but the traffic to the airport can be horrendous, so I don’t know when we’ll see food again.”

  “You don’t have to urge me. This food speaks for itself.” He looked at his watch for the third time in five minutes and, sensing an unusual urgency about him, she finished her meal and checked the stateroom to see if she had missed packing anything.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  “Good.” He hugged her and then took her hand. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  So far, so good, Jake thought as they entered the baggage room to claim their luggage. When the clerk appeared ready to question their arrival before the scheduled time, Jake handed him a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Thanks, friend. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

  “Yes, sir. You want the lady’s bag, too?”

  Jake handed the bags to a porter, and they were off the boat with time to spare. He saw the agents at once, and shook his head to indicate that he didn’t want contact with them.

  “What are we waiting for?” Allison asked him when the porter placed their bags beside them.

  “The car isn’t here.” He didn’t lie; he knew it was parked well away from the pier.

  Shortly after nine, the first passengers walked off the plank. He had positioned himself where he could see each one, for they had to walk off single file. After a few minutes, Ned walked off. To his stunned disbelief, Jake knew he was looking at the real Ned. He held out three fingers, to indicate that the agents should expect four people, and pointed one finger to Ned.

  “What time do you have?” he asked Allison, diverting her attention while an agent walked away with Ned.

  “Nine-twenty. What time was the car due here?”

  “Not to worry, love,” he said, keeping his gaze on the disembarking passengers, “my publisher has yet to disappoint me.”

  Suddenly, his heart began thumping in his chest and his adrenaline stirred as it had at critical times when he was on a dangerous mission. Moisture accumulated in his mouth and his blood raced through his veins. The agent wasn’t looking his way, so knowing he had no choice, he stepped up to Lena and Ned II, detaining them. Lena’s worried and impatient facial expression confirmed his opinion of her as a smuggler.

  “Hi. I was hoping I’d get a chance to tell you goodbye.” With his left hand, the one in the direction of the agent, he held out two fingers. “All the best to you,” he said when, from the corner of his eye, he saw the agent moving toward them. He ducked out of the way and almost bumped into Allison.

  “Look,” she said. “Where is that man taking them?”

  He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Beats me.” But he knew that one of the ringleaders was about to escape.

  “I’d better call or email,” he said to her, knowing she would think he referred to the driver of their car.

  He rang the agents’ cell phones to get their attention, hung up, and emailed them to expect Ring, who would probably leave the ship late. If not, he added in the email, go on board the ship and pick him up. He’ll be in the kitchen.

  Having completed his mission, he phoned the driver of their car. “We’re at the pier,” he said. “Right beside the sign that says ‘Welcome aboard the Saint Marie.’”

  After the driver stored their bags in the trunk of the stretched-out Lincoln Town Car and they seated themselves, Jake opened the bar. “Want a soda or some lemonade?” he asked Allison.

  “Later, maybe. Thanks.”

  “You’ll find coffee, snacks, and sandwiches to your right, sir,” the driver said. “Sit back and enjoy the ride. We should be there around noon.”

  They checked their luggage, and when they finally boarded the plane, he took in a long and deep breath. One more job well done, and he hoped it would be the last the chief asked of him. What he couldn’t get out of his mind was the question of how the real Ned got back on that ship. He’d bet anything that the man reported his passport lost, and got a new one from the U.S. consulate in Martinique in time to get back on the ship. He couldn’t even guess why the man risked exposure by sending an illegal alien to the dining room in his place.

  “Excuse me for a couple of minutes,” he said to Allison. “If I don’t write this down, it might slip me.” He made rough notes on a small pad, and put the pad in his shirt pocket. He wanted food, but more than that, he wanted to sleep. He had spent a good deal of the night before looking for Ring and hadn’t gotten to bed until after three.

  The steward soon brought sandwiches, a salad, and drinks. He nibbled at the sandwiches. “Do you mind if I go to sleep?” he asked Allison.

  “Of course not,” she said. “This is a good time for me to work.”

  He reclined the back of his seat, put the pillow beneath his neck, and, for reasons he didn’t question, laid his head against Allison’s shoulder and went to sleep.

  * * *

  Allison eased her left arm beneath Jake’s back, and he snuggled as close to her as their seats would allow. She didn’t try to work. It may be the only time he is ever truly mine, she told herself and fought to stay awake to enjoy those moments. In spite of her efforts, she awoke as the wheels of the big plane touched down at the Ronald Reagan National Airport.

  The following day, Friday, they arrived in Idlewild around three in the afternoon, and with instructions from her, he drove the rented car to 30 Michigan Boulevard.

  Almost before the car came to a full halt, her aunt rushed out to greet her. Now what? Allison thought. I didn’t tell her he was coming or anything about him, and she’ll give him the third degree.

  Jake got out of the car and went around to the passenger door, as he always did, to assist her, and she knew he wondered why she sat there and let him open the door. She never did that, but right then she focused on gathering the wits she would need to deal with her aunt and didn’t think to open the door and get out.

  “Well now, sakes alive. Who’ve we got here? Why, you’re the same one I was fishing with. You don’t know my...” She clapped her hands together and looked toward heaven. “Lord, you have taken matters into your own hand.

  “Allison,” she called, “come here, child, and introduce me to your friend. You didn’t tell me you found him. Well, do tell!”

  Allison walked around to where her aunt Frances stood beaming at Jake and stole a glance at the perplexed man. “Auntie, this is Jacob Covington, he’s—”

  “Not the writer!” She held out her hand. “I never expected to run into you again. Do you talk more’n you did when we were fishing?”

  He looked down at the five-foot-three-inch woman and grinned. “Well, ma’am, I do when I get a chance.”

  Laughter rolled out of Frances Upshaw, and Allison noticed that her aunt still held Jake’s hand. “I’ll talk you to death if you let me,” she said. “How long you staying?”

  “Jake has to leave around noon Saturday, but I’ll stay till about that time Sunday
. Think you can drive me over to Reed City?”

  “I’ll be busy with the barbecue, but some of the girls over at the club will be glad to do it. Come on in.”

  “How do you like your food?” she asked Jake. “Southern style or messed up the way the Yankees do it? I’m good for either one.”

  Allison could see that Jake was taken with her aunt, and when a grin spread over his face, she knew that the weekend would go well.

  “I take it you were born in the South. I’ll eat whatever you cook, but I kinda love soul food.”

  She looked at Allison. “Go on upstairs and show him where he’s going to sleep. I think I’ll drop my line and see if I can pull up a few catfish for supper. There’s a big bowl of homemade potato salad in the refrigerator, and I baked a ham last weekend. Good thing, too. Eat whatever you want. Just make yourselves at home.”

  Jake followed Allison up the stairs carrying their bags. At the top, he cradled her face in his hands. “I thought you said your aunt would expect you to be circumspect. She practically told you I could sleep wherever you want me to sleep.” He pinched her nose. “You’re the one with the rules; she couldn’t care less.”

  “But you don’t expect me to—”

  “No, I definitely do not. I have a hunch she’s more modern than either of us. It’s still fairly warm. I’d like a swim. How about you?”

  “I’m not in the mood, but I’ll go with you. If you’re going to wear those bathing trunks I saw you in, you should have a chaperon. Those things were three inches short of decent.”

  He looked at her, a grin lighting his face and his twinkle hard at work. “Got your attention, didn’t it?”

  She winked right back at him. “And then some.” She put on a bathing suit and a long beach robe, her straw hat, and sandals.

  He met her at the top of the stairs. She gulped and made no apologies for it. I’m human, she thought, so why shouldn’t I react to him this way? She got a beach towel from the linen closet, folded it, and threw it across her arm.

  “Ready to go?” he asked. She nodded, but if she told him the truth, she would shock him. His face creased into a smile and quickly dissolved into a laugh. “To the beach, I mean.”

  Caught ogling him, she put on a stern face. “Clever. I should swat you for going out in public like this.”

  He doubled up with laughter, and although she tried to resist, she joined him, laughing with him until they were both nearly breathless.

  Sobriety took over, and his eyes blazed with passion. “If we made love right now, we’d get on a high and stay there indefinitely. See what kind of notions you put in my head? Let’s go.”

  “If I put notions in your head, it wasn’t until after you filled my head with them. What do you think crosses a healthy woman’s mind when she sees you in that getup?”

  With her hand snug in his, they strolled along Michigan Boulevard. “Probably the same thing men think about when they see you in that thing.” He pointed toward her uncovered waist and hips.

  “I’m wearing a robe.”

  “You weren’t wearing one the morning I saw you out there, and let me tell you the view was just as nice as if you’d been Aphrodite rising from the sea.”

  She squeezed his fingers in place of the hug she wanted to give him. “What a lovely metaphor. To be likened to Aphrodite makes me feel like beating my chest.”

  His arm encircled her and brought her closer to him. “Believe me, I can do better than that. A lot better.”

  They reached the beach and he handed her his watch. “I’ll be out there ten or fifteen minutes. The wind’s rising. If it gets much stronger, shout. It’s almost too windy now.”

  “All right.” She spread the beach towel on the sand, put on her sunglasses, and stretched out.

  * * *

  “I thought I asked you to... Say, are you asleep?” he asked sometime later.

  She opened her eyes, barely aware of her surroundings until he leaned over her and kissed her lips. She patted the place on the blanket beside her. “Let’s stay for a few minutes. It’s so quiet and peaceful here by ourselves.”

  He lay on his side, resting his elbow on the towel. “I’ve always loved the water. I can sit by the ocean, a river or a lake and know a peace, a kind of tranquility that doesn’t come to me anywhere else. I wish we had more time out here, but it’s getting too breezy and too cool, and I do not want to suffer the consequences. Let’s go back.”

  But she couldn’t bear to end the moment there with him. “Can’t we stay a little longer? It’s so pleasant and... Let’s sit over there under that maple tree. We can shake out the beach towel and wrap it around you.”

  “After I dry off. Not that this towel is big enough to cover me.”

  They sat beneath the maple, an old and gnarled arbor that looked as if it had stood guard in that spot for centuries. She locked the fingers of her right hand through his left ones and leaned against the back of the bench.

  “Aunt Frances said they’re expecting a huge crowd tomorrow. The barbecue is a part of the plan to restore Idlewild to its former eminence as a resort. So many people are coming that the residents are offering their homes to those who have to spend the night.”

  “From what I’ve seen, I expect they welcome the income. Didn’t your aunt plan to take any?”

  “Auntie? Much as she loves Idlewild and as hard as she’s worked to make the barbecue feast successful, she wouldn’t think of it. Auntie likes her solitude and her privacy.”

  “I could use a little of your warmth. Move closer,” he said, holding her in his arms and resting her head against his chest. “I can’t imagine a more comforting setting.”

  She kissed his bare chest, reveling in the moment. “Me, neither. It’s idyllic.” She nuzzled his chest, her cheek brazing his left pectoral.

  “Hey!” he said. “You’re circumspect, and you’re sleeping by yourself. Remember? So go easy on that.” He hugged her when she kissed him again. “Why wasn’t your aunt surprised to meet me?”

  “Beats me. If she opened her door and found a unicorn standing there, she’d probably say, ‘Hi. Where’d you come from?’ You can’t get more laid-back than my aunt Frances.”

  “That’s not quite the answer I want.”

  “Well...I described you to her after I saw you on the beach that morning, and after the two of you fished together she told me that the man she fished with had to be the same man I saw on the beach. She said you were as tight-lipped as a kid in a dentist’s chair.”

  “I don’t make a habit of giving strangers my life history. Look!”

  She sat up and followed his gaze. “What a sight!” she said of the large round red disc that was the setting sun.

  “Yeah.” He held her closer. “Whenever I see anything in nature as striking as this, I have to thank God for my eyes.”

  That was a message she never expected to receive from him, and in spite of herself the reporter replaced the woman. “I had no idea you were religious.”

  He raised his right hand as if acknowledging the absurd, a gesture she had observed at his lectures. “Considering where I came from and where I am, why wouldn’t I be religious? I certainly don’t consider myself all-powerful, so I expect I’ve had a good deal of help.”

  She turned to get a good look at his face while he spoke as if he talked about himself that way all the time, as if she should have known that about him.

  I love him, but I don’t know important things about him, just as he has no knowledge of the crucial things in my past. If only I could level with him, but I’m scared. If he knew about Roland Farr, if he knew why this job is so important to me, he wouldn’t let me finish the tour.

  “Surprise you?” he asked her when she didn’t respond.

  She couldn’t tell him she hadn’t answered because she didn’t
know what to say. She thought for a minute longer. “In a way, but I would have been much more surprised if you told me something about yourself that wasn’t positive.”

  “Woman, you’re good for my ego,” he said, hugging her.

  “It’s just about to slip away from us,” she said of the setting sun, its red image across the lake growing shorter and shorter.

  “What’s slipping away from... Oh! You mean the sun. I hope those words don’t prove prophetic.”

  He stood, folded the towel, draped it across his left shoulder, and extended his right hand to her. “If your aunt will lend me her fishing gear, I can still fish for half an hour or so.”

  “Course you can borrow it,” Frances told him when they returned to the house. “They’re biting right good, too. I got four catfish and a pike, but I’ve been fishing in these lakes so long I know where to go and how to do it. What did you catch when you were here a few weeks ago?”

  “A four-or five-pound striped bass. I gave it to the cook at Morton Inn.”

  “Hurry back now,” she told him after he dressed, loped down the stairs, and selected the fishing gear. “I’d like us to eat at seven or seven-thirty. You going?” she asked Allison.

  “He needs his space, and I want to call Sydney.”

  To her surprise, Jake bent down and kissed her mouth in her aunt’s presence. “Be back in an hour. Give Sydney my best,” Jake said and left.

  With her hands squarely on her hips, Frances looked at Allison, her expression that of disbelief. “I can’t believe you didn’t figure out the man you saw on the beach was the one you were traveling with almost every day.”

  “He didn’t pass that close to me. Anyway, I barely glanced at his face; I was too busy ogling the rest of him.” Laughter bubbled up in her throat and poured out as a giggle. “He wears clothes on the tour, so I had nothing for comparison.”

  “Do tell!” Frances rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “You don’t have to tell me how you found out he was the same man.”

  “Uh—”