Renegade Player

by Dixie Browning

  For the first time in her life, Willy reacted to her father as one adult to another, and it was a heady experience. Her newfound independence raised her up to his eye level, and unexpectedly she found a touching hint of vulnerability in the man she had always held as slightly above and off to one side of humanity.

  Over herring roe and blintzes they talked of Willy’s experiences as a newly fledged real-estate saleswoman and Jasper related some of his own earlier exploits in the same field, to her amused enlightenment. When he suggested she might enjoy joining him on his leisurely drive up the coast to Nova Scotia, she found the courage to mention Breda for the first time. So far, as if by silent mutual consent, they had avoided the subject of Jasper’s third wife.

  Before Jasper could answer, there was a tap on the door and a bellboy brought a note, which Jasper read and pocketed, dismissing the boy with a bill.

  “Desk says a fellow’s been making inquiries about someone driving a car like mine. Do I look like a car thief to you?”

  “One with exceptionally good taste, at least,” she teased, dismissing the incident and returning to his suggestion.

  “All right, Mina,” her father interrupted, “I can see you aren’t quite ready to commit yourself to a couple of weeks of my steady company, but at least let me send for your things and have you moved into my suite for a visit. That should give you more time to make up your mind.”

  Her first impulse was to refuse, and then she thought, Why not? A change of scenery might give her the objectivity she needed to decide on her next step. It was a cinch she couldn’t remain at the beach—or anywhere else outside her father’s company—without a job; and now that the season was well under way and the place swarming with college students, most of the positions would be filled. She didn’t hold out much hope of her own field, if what Matt had said about the economic scene was true.

  They returned to her apartment and Willy took a slightly wicked pleasure in watching Jasper’s reaction to the place she had spent over half a year in. He tried manfully to hide his distaste, but it was as if he suddenly found himself in the tourist section of a commercial liner instead of ensconced in the plush comfort of his own Lear jet.

  “I won’t be a minute,” she promised him. “Have a seat, or you might enjoy my porch. I’ve a fabulous view.”

  Selecting the things she knew her father favored from among her skimpy wardrobe, she packed enough for two days. He might have to get used to seeing her in jeans and off-the-rack casuals if his visit lasted much longer than that, she thought with a wry smile. This just wasn’t Jasper’s sort of beach. In his perfectly creased sharkskins, his navy blazer with the yacht-club colors and the ascot carefully arranged at his throat, he looked somehow diminished—or was that because Willy unconsciously stacked him up beside a tall, sun-bronzed creature in jeans and wom-deck shoes?

  Drat! She had promised herself to forget Kiel Fiaulk-ner and all he stood for, and even now she could still see the way the light got behind his dark eyes, making them incandescent, could still smell the particular fragrance of his healthy male flesh and feel the touch of his hands as they made their sure way over her body.

  To clear away the unwanted memory, she started chattering as soon as she joined her father, and as she pulled the door to after her and locked it, she asked about Breda once more.

  Jasper carefully handed her bag into the back before turning to answer her question. “Mrs. Coyner-Silverthorne is cruising in the Caribbean with friends. We were both to go and then I got a call from—Well, you know, of course, that I’ve pretty well kept up with your progress,” he said almost shamefacedly. “At any rate, I decided to take a drive up north and drop in on you, and so my lovely wife went on alone.” A bitter smile appeared for a moment and then faltered. “Not that I expect she’s still waiting for me. No, darling, it looks as if I may as well relinquish my fond and foolish dreams of having a son and settle for grandsons, providing my daughter obliges me before I’m too old to teach them a thing or two.”

  Willy had paused with her hand on the open door and now she turned impulsively to her father and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh, Jasper, you old sweetheart, you—as if you weren’t still young enough to start a dozen families!” She reached up the few inches necessary to kiss him gently. “Don’t count on me to do the honors, though. I have a feeling I might be the career-woman type.”

  He handed her into the low-slung car as if she were infinitely precious to him, and by the time he had opened his own door with a courtly flourish and lowered himself behind the wheel, all traces of moisture had gone from her eyes.

  She stayed three days at the plush beachside hotel and the two of them saw the sights, with Jasper doing his level best to assume the mien of the average tourist when it was all too obvious that he considered himself far from the average anything. On Thursday afternoon, he took her down from his third-floor suite, a bellboy following along behind with her one case, and they paused just outside the door to speak to an acquaintance of his.

  While Jasper was assuring the man that they had little to worry about as far as the the first tropical depression ofthe season was concerned, Willy allowed her eyes to stray across the parking lot to a field of wild flowers, and then her eyes blinked and returned slowly to the parking lot where Jasper’s Ferrari baked in the summer sun. It was not the Ferrari, however, that had caught and held her stunned look; it was the silver-gray Porsche that was parked beside it, one door open with a long, jeans-clad leg extending from it.

  She gulped, and when Jasper turned and took her elbow, she could hardly breathe, much less speak. Walking stiffly beside him, she tried to tell herself that she had made a mistake. After all, there was more than one 928S on the roads, so why not another one here at Nags Head?

  Deep inside her, where something heavy and cold lay in the pit of her stomach, she knew it was no mistake. Kiel Faulkner was out there waiting for her, and for the life of her she couldn’t think why. After the way they had parted, she would have thought he’d be glad to see the last of her.

  Unless—rational thought had flown out the window as she came nearer to that one long, powerfully muscled leg extended so carelessly across the cracked concrete paving—unless he was here to throw a monkey wrench in the works by telling her father about her behavior or, at least, what he thought was her behavior as far as Randy was concerned.

  With a panicky reaction more in keeping with a schoolgirl, Willy turned impulsively to her father. “Jasper, maybe I will go to Nova Scotia with you, after all.”

  But it was too late. Looming before them was Kiel Faulkner, who looked as if he could take her neck between his fingers and snap it the way the boys at the docks headed shrimp. “Hello, Kiel,” she managed with a poor excuse for a smile. “Have you—I’d like you to meet—”

  “Where have you been these past three days,” Kiel demanded, his eyes ignoring Jasper to bore straight through Willy.

  “Here, now,” broke in Jasper, who was not at all used to being dismissed.

  “You keep out of this, dammit! Willy”—he turned to glare at her—“have you been here with this—this antique Casanova?”

  “Now you listen here, my good man,” Jasper blustered, but Kiel turned on him, forcing him to step back precipitately. ‘I'm not your good anything, you swine, and if I ever catch you hanging around her again, I’ll take you apart, limb by limb! Come on!” He grabbed Willy by the wrist and practically threw her into the car, slamming the door after her. She managed to keep her fingers from being sliced off, and when Kiel slung himself in beside her and roared out of the parking lot, leaving a stunned Jasper standing there with her suitcase in his hand, she was still clutching her hand, totally beyond speech.

  They passed the corner of Wimble Court at a speed that should have drawn every patrolman out of Manteo, and when he kept on going without even slackening, Willy stole a frightened glance at his grim profile. She had never before noticed that his jaw was made of steel, with whitleather stretched
tightly over it, or that his nose cut the air before him like some slashing broadax.

  “Where are we going?” she managed when he slowed down to ten miles above the legal limit.

  “Shut up!”

  She shut. They were headed either for Bodie Island Lighthouse or for Oregon Inlet, and when they roared past the black and white lighthouse and kept on going, she began to thaw out. The marina. The Good Tern, and unless he planned to drown her immediately, then he must have some good reason for what amounted to virtual kidnapping.

  A thought occurred to her. All her life, she had been guarded against such an occurrence, for the only child of a man as wealthy as Jasper Silverthorne was constantly vulnerable. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if she were being held for ransom by a man who was almost as well-to-do as her own father? Maybe they could trade . . . Randy for her. She giggled, from pure nerves.

  “I’m glad you see something to laugh about in all this. Believe me, when I’m through with you, you won’t be doing much laughing!”

  She remained quiet, her insides quivering with a sensation that didn’t bear examining, and when Kiel pulled up at the marina in a spray of marl and dragged her from the car, pulling her stumblingly after him, she hurried along, her high-heeled pumps threatening to throw her with every step. Not until he more or less shoved her into the small tender did she utter an outraged protest, and that he countered with a succinct word.

  As incensed as she was, there was little she could do when he ripped through the lazy-afternoon quiet with a roar of his small, powerful outboard, and by the time they reached the moored ketch, she was determined to hold her peace until she had him where she wanted him; then, and only then, would she let go with a blast that would have him thinking twice and three times before he ever dragged another woman away from her father.

  The deck shifted gently under the weight of two boarders and Willy lurched awkwardly for an instant before she regained her balance. Oh, fine! Just the way to make an impression, falling flat on her face! She reached down and pulled the high-heeled shoes off and dropped them carelessly as she stood there, calculating her next move.

  Kiel had gone to the stern and was making fast the small tender, ignoring her completely, and finally she could stand it no longer. “Would you care to explain your outrageous behavior, or am I to understand that you just couldn’t wait for my company a minute longer?”

  “If that’s the case,” he sneered, “then it looks as if I’m no more particular than you are, doesn’t it?”

  Her breasts heaving turbulently, Willy glowered at him while he did something to the lines that led to the anchor, and then it dawned on her that he was preparing to get under way.

  “Just a damn minute there, Kiel Faulkner, you can’t do this!”

  “It looks to me as if I’m doing it, and stop swearing. I’ll take your word for it that you’re a tough, liberated cookie without your having to prove it every other breath.”

  “I—I’ll have you up on white slavery charges,” she threatened, and then wished she’d kept her mouth shut when she saw the look he leveled at her.

  “You’re asking for it, Willy, and believe me, I’ve never disappointed a lady yet,” he said silkily.

  “No, I’ll just bet you haven’t! You—you probably earned the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for outstanding performance!”

  He grinned at her as he reached around the console and started the throbbing engines. “Make that the Woman’s Home Companion and I’ll go along with you.”

  Infuriated, she turned her back on him, staring at the creamy wake that sprang up behind them as the Tern headed smoothly out into the inlet. She’d just ride it out. Not another word would she say until he told her what he was doing and why.

  “There’s a slab of fresh tuna in the refrigerator. I’d suggest broiling it with butter and pepper and maybe a dash of lemon.”

  “And you can go straight to hell and take your tuna with you,” she seethed.

  They went under the bridge and he laughed without bothering to turn around. “Your stomach’ll conquer you, Willy Silverthorne, even if I can’t manage it.”

  With the sudden stricken feeling that he just might be right, Willy turned, to stare at his back. The wind was blowing his dark hair around his head and the sun, sinking lower and lower into the Pamlico Sound behind them, washed his broad shoulders and lean hips with copper, leaving his legs from the thighs on down dark with the shadow of the boat. Had she ever thought even for a minute that she could wipe him out of her mind? She must have been mad.

  With a helplessness born of conflicting emotions, she dropped down onto the cushion-covered lockers as they followed the tortuous channel out the inlet. Once on the other side of the breakers, she felt the engines slow, and when all motion except for the slight roll ceased, Kiel strode lithely forward and she heard the hum that signaled the lowering of the forward anchor. She waited fatalistically while he lowered the stern anchor, and then, when he nodded to the hatch, she got up and followed him below.

  “Fight all gone? You must be either hungry or seasick,” he remarked as he opened the refrigerator and took out a slab of pink fish.

  Silently she watched the preparation of the meal. If she had suspected him of deliberately cultivating a few culinary tricks to capture her interest in the beginning, she knew she was wrong. He moved too surely as he went about the business of grilling the fish, tossing a simple salad and pouring the wine on the gently rocking sailboat without spilling a drop.

  From time to time as they ate, she felt his eyes on her in a speculative way and she ignored him, pretending absorption in her food, although for once she was totally uninterested in what was on her plate. The tuna was something to be pushed around with her fork as her mind raced frantically in circles, always coming out at the same place. She knew with a dreadful sort of fascination that after tonight, nothing would ever be the same.

  Finally, he stood up and said, “All right, Willy. No point in punishing your plate with your fork any longer. Get in there.” He nodded to the door behind her, which she knew led to his stateroom. Inside the compact, well-designed space was the V bunk and little else, and she raised stricken eyes to him.

  “Kiel . . . not this way, please,” she whispered, still sitting rigidly in her chair at the convertible table.

  “Then what way, Willy? In your apartment? In a hotel suite? You name it, you’ve got it,” he told her bitterly, moving toward her relentlessly so that she had to stand or be overrun. “What’s the matter? You were interested enough not too long ago. Is it that fellow at the hotel?” His voice was filled with contempt and something that sounded strangely like hurt . . . which was impossible. “I’ll match my material possessions against his and give you something he can’t match, Willy. Ten years and a wedding band. How’s that for a bargain?” He flung at her, forcing her in through the narrow door so that she stumbled and fell against the bunk.

  She closed her eyes against the hard accusation she saw in his, and when she felt his hands on her hips, she turned away from him, but he pulled her back, catching her under the knees and throwing her legs up on the triangular mattress. Something inside her was crying and she had no idea the sounds were escaping until she felt the cool wetness on her face.

  There were sounds from behind her and she heard the rasp of a zipper and then he was beside her, turning her over so that he could open her dress down the back.

  She was beyond physical resistance, but she whispered, “Please, Kiel, not when you hate me so much.”

  The laugh that tore from him was not a pleasant thing to hear. “Hate you! God, how I wish I could! Can you imagine what it’s like to despise someone and love them at the same time so that you end up hating yourself for your own weakness? That’s what you’ve done to me, Willy Silverthorne.” Her dress had been pulled aside roughly and now he lifted her and tugged it from under her and threw it aside. “I came down here prepared to show you up for what you were and prove to Melanie once and for all tha
t she had nothing to worry about. You can imagine how I felt when I fell under the spell of your own particular brand of sex appeal within days! I told myself a man could afford to like his work and still do a good job, but when I lost all perspective and began doubting the things I knew were true about you, then I should have had the sense to get the hell out and let Melanie sort out her own problems.”

  His hands had commenced that hypnotic stroking now, and as she felt Ms touch on her throat and down her shoulders to her breasts, Willy knew she had to say something before matters went any further.

  “Kiel . . . about Jasper. You don’t understand,” she began hesitantly.

  “Oh, I understand, all right. A man like that, thinking he’s over the hill and then getting the come-on from a girl young enough to be his daughter—”

  “But that’s just it, Kiel! I am his daughter! Jasper’s my father!”

  The hand stopped. It was as if all life ceased for a moment of suspended animation, and then the breath was ripped from his lungs as if she had struck him in the middle. “Oh, God, Willy, don’t play these games with me. Please, girl.” His voice was a hoarse parody of his usual assured tones and Willy turned and caught him up in her arms. “Please,” he groaned, “you’ve got me where you want me—that is, if you do want me. I’ll marry you, I’ll do anything you want—only, Willy, from now on I’m the only man in your life. I’ll take care of any needs and wants you have, regardless of what they are, is that understood?”