“Good Lord, do you eat ’em or wear ’em,” she gurgled, forgetting her throbbing foot for the moment.
“If you don’t eat it immediately, you’ll be wearing it right enough,” he warned, handing over one of the plastic bowls filled with three colors of ice cream, whipped cream, crushed pineapple, chocolate syrup and a topping of crystallized ginger, “because the damned things are highly perishable.”
She took him at his word, tackling it suspiciously from the side. “I see now why you insisted on getting me out of the car.”
“You’re catching on fast. . . watch that drip on the side! Now, aren’t you glad Dotty rang in a substitute? She’d never have thought of this.”
“Ice cream to make it all better?” Willy murmured, slanting him a playful look as she caught a sliding mound of whipped cream.
“Just one among several traditional folk cures,” he returned.
“Yes, well, this one happens to be a favorite of mine.”
They concentrated on eating for the next few minutes, and when they were finished, Kiel took both bowls and went off in search of a place to wet his handkerchief. Napkins wouldn’t suffice. He was back shortly, and by then, Willy had steeled herself against his insidious charm. She took the wet handkerchief and wiped her mouth and hands and then asked idly, “Where’s Melanie today?”
“Claudia offered to take her in tow and show her the sights. They mentioned the Elizabethan Gardens and Fort Raleigh and maybe the Marine Resources Center if there was time, but I have an idea they won’t get beyond the biggest emporium on the beach.”
“You’ll have to show her around later. After all, she didn’t come all this way to be fobbed off with your secretary.”
“No, as a matter of fact, she came all this way to see if I had made any progress in finding out about the woman who broke up her engagement to my half-brother.”
Willy twisted to ease her foot. “Is that what you came down here for? I thought you were here to take Randy Collier’s place at CCE? You mean your brother’s—well, whatever she was—is in this area, too?” Thoroughly confused, Willy frowned at him, wishing she had brought along her dark glasses against the brilliant sun. Kiel’s face was totally unreadable, silhouetted as it was against the afternoon sky.
He stood up immediately. “Come on, let’s go home. This is no place to talk. Besides, the doctor said something about starting on antibiotics immediately, didn’t he? Well, let’s go get you taken care of and then we have a few things to sort out.”
To tell the truth, Willy was more than ready to leave. The infection that had flared so quickly had had a systemic effect on her and some of the exhilaration she had felt on first seeing Kiel had worn off now, leaving her hot and tired and achy.
There was no more talk on the way home. During the ten-minute ride Kiel concentrated on driving in a way that didn’t jar her foot and he insisted on carrying her up her stairs when they reached Wimble Court. “I saw you when you got home last night,” he told her as he managed the key without even shifting his burden. “I don’t mind telling you I thought about coming over and letting you in on a few home truths. I was still mad as hell, but when I saw Rumark helping you up the stairs, it looked to me as if you were both about three sheets to the wind.” He grinned down at her in the doorway. “If it’s any comfort to you, I didn’t sleep worth a damn!”
Willy laughed and ducked her head. “If it’s any comfort to you, I didn’t, either,” she admitted.
Chapter Eight
Just for an instant when Kiel lowered her onto the sofa, Willy caught an objective glimpse of the room that had come to be home to her in the past few months. Shiny varnish on paneled walls, a ceiling that was marked from the frequent hard rains and an assortment of furniture that only a mother could love; all the same, it would be a wrench to have to leave it. She leaned back her head and closed her eyes and she heard Kiel sliding open the door that let out onto her upstairs porch. Unlike his, hers was not screened, but it didn’t seem to matter too much. There was usually a breeze off the ocean and mosquitoes didn’t fly above forty feet, her landlord had told her optimistically.
She opened her eyes to see Kiel’s face with a shaft of sunlight throwing into relief the prominent cheekbones and casting a beam behind the irises of his eyes so that she saw for the first time that they were really a clear, deep gray, not the opaque metallic shade she had supposed.
He sat on the foot of the sofa, taking care not to jar her foot. “I’ll get you some water to take your pills with in a minute. First, before we get interrupted by the phone or by Dotty or an itinerant encyclopedia salesman, I want to talk to you.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” she stalled. Now that the revelation—whatever it was—was about to become a reality, she was getting cold feet. When someone said they needed to talk to you, it was usually about something you’d just as soon not hear.
“You’re probably right,” he conceded. “I could use a pot of strong black coffee and you—” He broke off and examined her face with disconcerting thoroughness. “Did you know your eyes were the color of malachite? And there are shadows under them big enough to swallow them? You must have had a hell of a night.”
“It wasn’t one of my better times,” she admitted offhandedly. He was cradling her foot on his lap now, his hand playing idly up and down her shin, and she found it almost impossible to listen to his words when her body was growing increasingly aware of his.
“You really deal yourself a losing hand now and then, don’t you?” he asked.
“Who’s dealing?” She shrugged. “I stepped on a shell, that’s all.”
“And got your cut infected and resigned your job. Anything else to add to the list of woes?” His crooked grin with the one chipped tooth in a perfect lineup had the strange effect of irritating her. Or maybe she was only gathering up her defenses.
But before she could arrange them in an impregnable barrier, he had leaned over and gathered her up in his lap, and under the sensuous impact of his direct gaze, she melted, throbbing foot, aching head and all.
“How the hell am I supposed to talk to you when you sit there with your hair falling around your head, your lipstick all eaten off, chocolate on your shirt and a bandaged foot, and all I can think of is how I’m going to manage to get you in my bed?”
With a jolt like the slamming of a door, she felt the dangerous electricity flow through her at his words, that stunning, intoxicating feeling that rendered her all but helpless before his blatant virility. “Don’t start that again,” she warned shakily, leaning back to escape the full charge from his lambent eyes.
“Too late.” He laughed softly against her lips. “It’s already started.”
And it had. With a fatalistic helplessness, she allowed her arms to move around his shoulders to where she could tangle her fingers in his hair, holding his head above hers while his mouth sought affirmation of what his hands on her breasts were telling him.
Oh, Lord, he didn’t know what a losing hand was, she thought wildly as he slid his hands under her shirt to release the catch at her back. Here it was three o’clock of a sultry afternoon, and she was hurting and hungry in spite of the ice cream and all she could think of was what his hands were doing to her, and his mouth . . . and what she’d like for him to be doing to her.
A losing hand, oh, yes, and she had been playing for the highest of stakes, but she gave up and her last rational thought was that she may as well go out in style, as she allowed her own hands to unbutton the front of his shirt and steal their way inside to caress the hard, warm skin beneath.
“Do you know what you’re doing to me?” he whispered against her mouth.
She had no answer except to open herself to his kiss, allowing him the full freedom of her lips, his hands the freedom of her body. He caught the weight of her breasts in his hands and held them as if he were holding an unfledged baby bird, and she could have wept at his tenderness, for she had an idea that what force and aggres
siveness had failed to accomplish, this destroying gentleness would.
There was scarcely room on the sofa for the two of them and so his body had come to rest partly on hers, and even with his heart pounding in his breast like a captured thing, his breath coming harsh and ragged from tortured lungs, he was infinitely careful not to jar her injured foot. His hand stroked down from her breast to her waist and then slowly rounded her hip and slipped down her thigh, and when it reached her knee, he shifted her leg for greater security and she marveled at his concern for her at a time like this.
“Willy, I can’t seem to get much talking done for making love to you and it’s important that you understand something,” he murmured against her ear when they had kissed each other to the edge of sanity and back again. His hand lay still on her breast and so he was well aware of the condition she was in, nor was his own state any mystery to her. Never had she been so affected by the nearness of any man, and it was far more than his admitted expertise, more than the devastating way the planes and angles of his features fell together. It was simply that she loved him through and through and she was terribly frightened of what it was he had to tell her.
“Does it concern Melanie?” she asked tentatively.
After a brief pause, he said, “Yes, it does.”
That was enough. She willed her heart to be still, her eyes to hold her secret, and gathering every vestige of strength left to her, she pushed him away. Not hard . . . that would have required an explanation and she was in no condition to explain anything at the moment, but enough to bring a quick look of concern to his eyes.
“Your foot?” he asked, and she nodded. Better to let him think that than that it was her heart that was causing her more pain than she could bear. So Melanie was engaged to his brother—his half-brother. Well, Melanie wore no engagement ring, and it was not in a sisterly way that the exquisite young woman looked at him. Just when she reached the point where she didn’t think she could hold back a declaration of her own feelings, Melanie’s name would enter proceedings and once more she would feel that dreadful fear of rejection all over again. This time she’d take nothing for granted. No man was going to put her in the position Luke Styrewall had done.
“I—I think I’d better take something and try to get some sleep,” she told him. “I really didn’t get too much last night.” Which was no more than the truth, but it wasn’t only her foot that had kept her so wakeful in the night. Kiel bore his share of the blame as well.
Carefully, he extracted his long legs from hers and levered his weight up without jarring her. The concern written on his strong features was enough to bring a stinging to her eyes and she turned her face away from him. She could feel him looking down at her, his nearness having an effect on every cell in her body, and then he moved away and she heard him running water into a glass.
“I’ll leave a pitcher of iced tea on the coffee table where you can reach it,” he told her. “Here, take your pills. Is there anything else I can do to make you more comfortable?”
She was hungry and she wanted something hard and tough to chew, for she felt an overwhelming urge to bite and tear at something that couldn’t bite back, but she told him crossly not to fuss over her, just to go, and so he leveled a look at her that made her feel slightly ashamed of herself, and he left.
It had been too hot to sleep. The breeze, even here on the second floor, had dropped to practically nothing and she could hear the steady drone and drip of a window air-conditioner downstairs. Richy’s mother, Ada, managed to sleep days only with the air-condi-tioner, a pair of ear plugs and dark shades at her windows, but her air-conditioner, like most other appliances in the apartment, broke down at least once a month. Maybe she’d be better off finding herself another place to stay, Willy thought irritably as she struggled with a sticking ice tray.
Suddenly the walls seemed to close in on her. Thoughts of her infinitesimal savings, her lack of employment, her father’s probable reaction when he learned of her present circumstances, not to mention the mess she had got herself in as far as her foolish heart was concerned, all proved too much to cope with in the uninspiring confines of her shabby room. May as well give the antibiotic something to get its teeth into, she thought grimly, lurching into the bedroom to change into her bikini.
It was a good thing it was too early for Kiel to be back from work. She could imagine what he’d say after her having pleaded invalidism. Dismissing the thought from her mind, she spread her beach towel out on the sand just above the level of the tideline and lowered herself gingerly, taking care to keep her injured foot on the side away from the water. At least if the waves washed over her head, she could hold her bandage up and keep it dry, she thought with a partial return to her normal irreverent sense of humor.
The sun felt marvelous soaking through her skin and the thought of an even greater crop of freckles didn’t faze her in the least. She dozed when the soothing susurrus of the surf relaxed her for the first time since yesterday. When she opened her eyes again, instead of the cerulean dome overhead, she looked up into a brass bowl that shaded to copper on the western side. She was actually beginning to feel chilly, believe it or not, and she sat up and considered the easiest way to get to her feet without grinding wet sand into her bandage.
“Hi. I thought I’d come out and join you now that the sun’s not so hot. A girl can’t be too careful of her complexion, can she? But, of course, you don’t have to worry, poor thing.”
Twisting her head, she saw Melanie Fredericks drop a velvety towel to the sand beside her and lower herself gracefully.
So much for her precarious peace of mind. Willy settled back into place, bracing herself to think of something pleasant to say when she’d like to have the nerve to ignore the girl and walk away.
“Hello, Melanie. Did you have a good time sightseeing today?”
That brought on a sly, sidelong glance that Willy was in no mood to try and interpret. “Oh, I had an interesting day, all right,” drawled the little brunette. “Claudia and I went to her apartment and spent the afternoon talking.”
Well, bully for you, Willy thought sourly. She could think of lots more pleasant things to do than to spend an afternoon talking with either of them. Visit the dentist, maybe, or figure her income tax.
“Don’t you want to know what we talked about?”
“Not particularly,” Willy retorted, turning over on her face and pretending to be sleepy again.
“Oh, you should have been there. You’d have been awfully interested, Willy. What a peculiar name for a girl. . . Willy. Do you like it?”
Irritably, Willy told her that her friends called her Wilhelmina.
“We talked about mutual friends . . . yours, mine and Claudia’s,” the girl said, pausing expectantly afterward.
Willy rolled over and sat up again. “All right,” she sighed, “I can see you’re dying to tell me something, so why don’t you spit it out!”
“Oh, you are crude, aren’t you? Claudia said you weren’t her sort, and Randy— But of course, Randy would have an entirely different opinion, wouldn’t he?”
Inside her, several blocks of ice shifted and settled into a pattern she didn’t like, didn’t care for at all. “Randy?” she repeated cautiously.
“Randy Collier. You know him?”
“Look, Melanie, you have something on your mind. I’m in no mood to play games, so I suggest you either get to the point or go back inside and leave me in peace. My patience isn’t all that good at the moment.” “Well, the point is, Wilhelmina, dear, that you’re the woman who broke up my engagement. Now that I see you for myself, I wonder what all the fuss was about. I mean, really, it’s not as if you were any big threat or anything. Kiel might just as well not have bothered.”
A slow sort of paralysis crept over her mind and she could only stare at the preening little creature in the ice-blue one-piece bathing suit that fit like a second skin, emphasizing the very features it covered. “Kiel might just as well not have bothered
with what?” she repeated with a sense of dread.
“Well, after all, Randy is his half-brother, and when Randy called from Norfolk General and told us he was lying there with a broken leg and all sorts of miserable things, Kiel went rushing off to see him. I mean, what else could he do, especially as we hadn’t heard a thing from him in ages.” Melanie eyed her expectantly, but Willy was determined not to probe. She waited, dreading what she’d hear next, but when it came, it was worse than anything she could have imagined.
“You see, Randy and I were all set to be married, and then, when we got this letter that said he was making a fool of himself over some greedy little office worker who only went out with men of a certain income level for what she could get out of them, why I was all broken up. I declare, I wept buckets! Simply buckets full, and I told Kielly, and he and Daddy decided he’d better go see what was going on, so,” she continued with hardly a pause for air, “Kielly went to the hospital and Randy told him there was this girl who worked at the office next door and she had made a sort of— Well, you know how a girl can do when she’s, you know, interested in a man. Well, anyway, poor Randy told her he was engaged and all, but she wouldn’t leave him alone and when she threatened to write to his fiancée— that was me,” she added ingenuously, “and tell her this whole mess o’ lies, well, Randy got all upset and first thing he knew, he was upside down in a ditch.”
The air left Willy’s lungs in a burst and she closed her eyes. Random impressions whirled dizzyingly in her head and she tried to reach up and catch them and deal with them. How much of what Melanie said was the truth and how much a malicious prank on the part of her and Claudia? Somehow, she couldn’t see the older girl playing tricks, no matter how she disliked her, but writing a letter that would damage Willy’s position with Randy? Yes, she could easily see her doing something like that.
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