Ann sat up and took his hand, lightly tracing the calluses on his palm with her index finger. “But you’ve had lots of experience, and I haven’t had any,” she said.
“How old are you, Princess?” he asked quietly, after a thoughtful pause.
“Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in January.”
He sighed heavily. “That’s what I thought. You’re underage in this state.”
“You won’t stop seeing me!” Ann said in a panic, clutching his hand.
“No, no,” he said, pulling her into his arms again. “We just have to go slow and be careful.”
“How slow?” she asked, running her lips along the firm line of his throat, feeling powerful and womanly with newfound desire. “How careful?”
He rolled her under him and kissed her wildly, until she was sinking her fingers into his lush hair and wrapping her legs around his hips, urging herself against him. He finally pushed her away and stood abruptly, walking a short distance to lean against a nearby tree, breathing harshly.
“This is going to be tougher than I thought,” he said at length, when he was under control again.
“I know I’m not helping,” Ann said, not quite ashamed of herself. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”
“The feeling is mutual.” He sat a few feet away from her and said, “I have to ask you a question.”
“Anything.”
“Did you call Jensen’s earlier tonight and ask for me?”
“That was my friend Amy. I wanted to make sure you were there and I was nervous about calling myself.”
“Why?”
“I thought you might recognize my voice.”
“I would have, I think. But why didn’t you just admit that it was you?”
“I wanted the chance to back out if I got cold feet.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, Princess.”
“So am I.” She hesitated a moment and then said, “Why do you always call me ‘Princess’?”
“Because that’s what you look like to me, all golden hair and big blue eyes, creamy skin. Like what’s her name... with the dwarfs. Snow White.”
“Snow White had black hair,” Ann said laughing. “At least in the movie, she did.”
“Well, then, Sleeping Beauty. Or that other one in the tower, Rapunsa.”
“Rapunzel.”
“Right. I know she was a blonde—I saw the cartoon.” He was laughing with her. He stood, pulled Ann to her feet, and enfolded her tenderly.
“What are we going to do, Rapunzel?” he said into her ear. “I would go over to your house and talk to your father man to man, if I thought it would do any good....”
“Promise me you won’t do that, Heath!” Ann cried, seizing his arms. “Promise me!”
“All right, Annie, all right. Take it easy.”
“You don’t know what he’s like. He’ll do something awful to you, I know he will. You have to believe me.”
“I believe you. I believe you. Relax. Whew! Your old man must be some piece of work.”
“I’m supposed to cover his name with glory by marrying some millionaire. He will regard it as a failure on his part if I wind up with anything less.”
“Like me, for example.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to tell you that talking to him reasonably won’t work. I’ve tried it for years. My older brother has been going crazy trying to live up to the Talbot name since he was born. It’s worse for him, being a boy, because he has to inherit the business and prove himself worthy to be chairman of the board.”
“And all you have to do is marry well?”
“You got it.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“He lives in Massachusetts with his mother, my father’s first wife. He’s in college now, spending the summer as an intern at the Harvard Business School. Usually he’s down here this time of year.”
“So I guess this discussion means that we have to sneak around, huh?” Heath said bluntly.
“We have no choice. Amy will help, she’s very clever. Speaking of Amy, I have to get to her place by midnight, that’s her curfew. Her parents will be back home by then and I’m supposed to stay the night at her house.”
“Where does she live?”
“Cocoa Boulevard, by the golf course. Her family is moving to Largo in the fall.”
“I’ll drop you off there,” Heath said.
Ann moved back to look at him. “When will I see you again?” she asked him.
“I’m off Tuesday night,” he said. “Can you meet me in the parking lot of the Lime Island Inn? So many people come and go there, we won’t attract any attention. We’ll take a ride out of town and drive someplace where nobody will see us.”
“Eight o’clock?” Ann said.
“Seven. That will give us more time together.” He kissed her forehead and then said, “Come on, Princess, back up in the saddle again. I have to get you back to town.”
Returning to Port Lisbon with her arms planted securely around Heath’s middle, Ann knew she was the happiest she had ever been in her life.
* * * *
During the next six weeks Heath spent every waking minute he wasn’t working with Ann. She, in turn, spent sleepless nights thinking up excuses to explain her absences to her parents, called on friends who hadn’t heard from her in months to have them cover for her dates with Heath, and even invented a part-time job in Laguna to account for some evenings away from home. She knew she was pushing the limit when her mother began to acquire that “worried” look, common to all parents who suspect their teenage offspring of duping them. But Ann was ecstatic and walking on clouds, and so, deliberately ignored the warning signs.
Reality would not dare interrupt her dream.
She and Heath covered the Keys on his bike, playing pool and pinball and miniature golf, dancing in out-of-the way joints and eating in roadside cafes, generally having a wonderful time. Ann found Heath endlessly interesting; he had led a completely different life from the one she knew and she never tired of listening to his stories. He kept her on the move, because too much time spent alone was dangerous. She was wildly infatuated with him physically, in love for the first time and eager to experiment. He, of course, was more experienced, but also young and in love, and as the broiling summer days passed, his defenses began to weaken and they came closer and closer to the point of no return.
Ann was preparing to leave for her bogus job one evening when her father called her into his study. She knew she was in trouble when she saw her mother hovering anxiously in the hallway and Henry Talbot wearing his no-nonsense, Chief-Executive-Officer-of- ScriptSoft look. Ann walked meekly behind him into the paneled den and sat in the chair he indicated across from his desk.
“What is it, Daddy?” she asked innocently.
“Don’t bat your eyelashes at me, young lady. That may work with your hot-blooded, swamp-trotter boyfriend, but it will cut no mustard in this room.”
Ann could feel the perspiration begin to trickle down her legs and into her shoes.
“What do you mean?” she said quietly.
“I mean that I know you do not have a job in Laguna. I also know that you have abused my trust, not to mention your mother’s trust, by inventing stories to explain your whereabouts while you’ve been flitting all over these islands with that grease monkey straight from the trash heap—Heath Bodine.”
“Heath isn’t trash.”
“I don’t care what he is, young lady, he is not for you. I know his father. I know his family. A worse bunch of layabouts, substance abusers and mendicants never lived. And you have taken up with the very flower of the next generation.”
“You can’t stop me from seeing him.”
“Oh, I beg to disagree. I know where you’ve been going, who you’ve been spending time with—”
“You’ve been spying on me?”
“You’re my child, Ann, I have to look out for you.”
“What did you do, hire
a private detective?”
“I already had security men working for my business. It was easy enough to assign them elsewhere.”
Ann stared at him until he looked away.
“I love him, Daddy,” she said desperately.
“You do not love him—the very idea is preposterous. You come from one of the finest families on this island and he...well, it doesn’t merit consideration. I grant you that he is a handsome boy and possesses a certain raffish charm, that’s apparent even to me. But I will not have you throw away your future on a person without education, breeding or the slightest chance of ever making a decent living.”
“That isn’t true!” Ann protested. “Heath is talented and has lots of plans—”
“I am not going to discuss this with you any further, Ann!” her father said abruptly, interrupting her. “You are not to see that Bodine boy again. If I find out that you have disobeyed me, I promise you that the consequences for this young man will be dire.”
“What would you do?” Ann whispered, her fingers gripping the seat of her chair, her eyes huge.
“You would be wise not to push me to the point of finding out,” her father said crisply. “I trust we understand each other. You may go now.”
Ann rose like an automaton and walked out of his den to face her mother waiting in the hall.
Margaret Talbot put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder, but Ann shrugged it off miserably. She knew her mother would never disagree with her father about anything, no matter what her private feelings were on the matter.
Ann went into her bedroom, slammed the door, and flung herself down on her bed, rigid and dry eyed. She was too numb to cry.
What was she going to do?
Chapter 5
“I don’t think you understand the situation, Amy,” Ann sobbed, wiping her reddened nose with a tissue. “I’m forbidden to see Heath ever again. When I don’t show up to meet him at the inn tonight, he’s going to wonder what happened to me, and if I know him he’ll go right over to my house. Can you imagine the scene that will take place then?” She fell back on Amy’s bed, closing her eyes, which were so swollen from crying they felt tight and sore.
“Take it easy, I have an idea,” Amy said, glancing into the hall to make sure Delores, the Horton’s maid, was nowhere in earshot. Her parents were out at a party.
“I’ll listen to anything,” Ann said dully.
“I’ll go to the inn’s parking lot tonight and tell Heath what happened.”
Ann sat up. “Wonderful idea. He’ll drive his bike directly to my father’s door and then beat the man senseless.”
“Not if Heath knows he’ll be able to see you here,” Amy replied slyly.
“Amy, what are you talking about?” Ann asked wearily. “I told you, my father is having me followed. I can’t go anywhere without his knowing about it.”
“He’s not having my house watched, is he?” Amy asked rhetorically.
“I don’t know, maybe,” Ann said wildly. “He’s acting like an operative for the CIA. Amy, I’m desperate. The summer will be over in two weeks and then we have to go back to school. I’ll never be able to see Heath.”
“Will you calm down and listen to me?”
“Your parents will tell my father if I meet Heath here,” Ann said in exasperation, ignoring her. “They all stick together for this kind of thing, you know that!”
“They won’t tell your father if they’re not here to see it,” Amy said triumphantly.
Ann looked at her.
“They’re going to Michigan to stay with my Aunt Rita next week. They’ll be gone for ten days.”
Ann leaned forward, feeling the first glimmer of hope since the dismal interview with her father. “But Delores will be here,” she said, her mind already racing.
Amy shrugged. “When my parents aren’t home, she’s off all the time with her boyfriend. Remember when they went to St. Kitts? She showed up for a couple of hours in the morning to clean the house and then was gone the rest of the day. We have sort of a mutual pact of silence—she doesn’t ask me what I’m up to and I do the same thing for her.”
Delores was only a few years older than Ann and Amy and was probably sympathetic to their plight.
“When are they leaving?” Ann asked.
“Monday.”
“That’s a week away!” Ann wailed. “I can’t go without seeing Heath for a week!”
“You’ll have to. This plan is the best I can do.”
Ann thought about it. “Are you sure you can get to Heath tonight?” she asked.
“No problem. I’m supposed to go over to Murchison’s, anyway. I’ll just stop at the inn on the way.”
“And you’ll tell him to meet me here when your parents go away?”
“Right.”
“How are you going to get him into your house without my father’s spies seeing him?”
“I’ll talk to him and we’ll work something out, don’t worry about it. Maybe he can arrive early, hide his bike a few blocks away, then come in through the Cantrell yard. That place looks like a plant nursery—it will give him great cover. As far as you know nobody is following him, right?”
“As far as I know. There must be a limit to what even my father can do.”
Amy sat next to Ann on the bed and sighed. “I can’t believe the man put a tail on you.”
“He’s crazy. I always knew it. My mother knows it, too, but she’s trapped. She’s been married to him almost twenty years and she thinks it’s too late for her to start over with a new life.”
“How did he find out about Heath in the first place?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even ask. Probably one of his cronies saw us someplace and ratted. I guess he was bound to find out sooner or later, I was living in a dreamworld to think otherwise.”
“You’ve been living in a dreamworld since you met Heath, Annie,” Amy replied. “You’re just realizing that now?”
Ann said nothing.
“What time were you supposed to meet Heath tonight?” Amy asked.
“Seven.”
“All right. I’ll be there.”
“And you’ll tell him he can meet me here next week?”
“I’ll tell him. Let’s hope one of my parents doesn’t break a leg in the meantime and cancel the trip.”
Ann looked stricken.
“Only kidding. My mother won’t miss the chance to get together with her sister and dissect the rest of the family. When the plane for Michigan departs, Mom and Pop Horton will be on it.”
“I’ll pray that they are.”
“Now, come with me and wash your face. Things are looking up, kiddo.”
Ann followed Amy out of the bedroom.
She hoped that her friend was right.
* * * *
The week of waiting passed with glacial speed; Ann hung around the house, staring into space with a book propped on her lap or staring at the television with sightless eyes. Margaret Talbot hated to see her daughter so miserable, but any suggestion she made to take Ann’s mind off Heath was met with a curt rebuff. Ann was not interested in shopping, tennis, a swim at the club or a picnic on Big Palm Island. She didn’t want to buy school clothes, take a drive to Key Largo, pick out tapes at Murchison’s or books at Frawley’s. In short, she wanted to be left alone, and finally both of her parents did just that. Her father was satisfied that he had nipped his daughter’s declassé relationship in the bud; her mother was not so sure about that but maintained an anxious, concerned silence.
When the day finally arrived for her meeting with Heath, Ann tried not to show her changed mood, moping around as usual and mentioning casually at dinner that she was driving over to Amy’s that evening.
“Are you girls going out?” Margaret said brightly, pleased that Ann was demonstrating an interest in leaving the house at last.
“I don’t think so. We’ll probably just stay in and watch TV, get a pizza. Amy has some new tapes, too.”
“That sound
s like fun,” Margaret chirped, and Ann felt a sharp stab of pity for her mother, who obviously loved her child and wanted her to be happy but could not reverse two decades of deferring to Henry Talbot. Ann hated lying to her mother but saw no other way to handle her present dilemma.
Ann helped Luisa clear the dinner dishes and then went immediately to her room, where she stared out her window at the swimming pool until it was time to leave.
If she left too early, her father might get suspicious, and the last thing she needed was to have him on the trail again.
Ann breezed past her parents, car keys in hand, at a quarter to seven.
“Have a good time, dear,” her mother said, looking up from making a list for round-robin tennis on a yellow legal pad.
Her father lowered his newspaper, glanced at her, then raised it again.
Ann had to exercise extreme self restraint to drive within the speed limit on her way to Amy’s house. When she pulled into the Horton’s drive the house looked dark and her heart sank. Had something happened? It looked like nobody was home.
Ann went to the back door and saw Amy standing just inside the screen.
“Is he here?” Ann demanded.
“In my bedroom,” Amy replied, opening the door and standing aside.
Ann charged past her and ran down the hall to the bedroom wing, where Heath stood in Amy’s doorway. He grinned and Ann flew the last few feet, flinging herself on him.
“Hey,” he said, laughing, “slow down.” He hugged her tightly and caught Amy’s eye over Ann’s shoulder. He winked and nodded.
Ann clung to him as if he might vanish.
“Where’s your maid?” Heath asked Amy.
“Gone for the night.”
He nodded again. There was a long silence and then Amy cleared her throat ostentatiously, saying, “Well, I guess I’ll just leave you two kids alone.”
“Where are you going?” Ann asked, her voice muffled by Heath’s shirt.
“Over to Carol’s, she’s back from North Carolina.”
“Okay to give us till around midnight?” Heath asked.
“Fine. See you then.”
Amy slipped out through the patio doors and Heath held Ann off to look at her.
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