He tore his lips from hers and she felt them on her cheek, then her earlobe. His breath warm and rasping in her ear, he murmured, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you tonight. I could barely stand to look at you, I want you so much. It’s downright painful.”
Spontaneously she kissed his throat, and a sound rose from it, a moan of pleasure. Then suddenly their mouths were locked together again, breathlessly, their tongues meeting in a flickering dance. With one hand he held her in a tight embrace; the other stroked her hair, her neck, a shoulder, then felt along the ruffled neckline of her blouse until it found, between her breasts, the drawstring bow.
Without breaking the kiss, he tugged on it. The drawstring loosened, and the blouse slipped down a bit. He lowered the fabric that covered her left breast, then paused for a moment, his hand hovering over it. Harley felt the cool night air on her bare flesh, and she swore she could hear her heartbeat, as well as his.
The coolness gave way to a delicious, spreading warmth as he caressed her, his large hand more than covering her small breast. Although his palm felt rough, he touched her with exquisite gentleness, as if he was afraid of hurting, or scaring, her.
Ending the kiss, he whispered, “You can’t imagine what you do to me,” and nuzzled her hair.
She didn’t have to imagine. With his hips pressing her against the car, she could feel, even through the many layers of her skirt and the fabric of his trousers, how aroused he was. She wondered what it would feel like to take him into her. Would it hurt? Maybe, but she knew in her heart that he would take great care to be considerate of her. He would be wonderful. He would be careful and tender.
She wanted her first time to be with Tucker, and she wanted it to be tonight. The deal they had made just the previous day barely entered her mind; her many misgivings evaporated in the wake of the sensations that enveloped her.
Yes. Tonight.
Her nipple tightened beneath his touch, and he moaned again. His thumb found the stiff little bud and brushed across it, sparking an electric thrill. She gasped in astonishment. “Tucker...” She needed him. “Tucker...”
He froze. “I know,” he mumbled into her hair. “I know, I’m just...” He pulled back a bit, removed his hand from her breast, and pulled the white, ruffled cotton up to cover her. “I know we have a deal. I didn’t mean to go this far, I just... I just wanted to kiss you, and...” He shrugged helplessly.
Harley was speechless to find him backing off, giving her the space he thought she wanted, doing the responsible thing. Now she was the impulsive one, and he was going by the book. Things were turning around, and Harley’s mind reeled in confusion.
He began retying the drawstring that secured her blouse. “I didn’t mean to take advantage of you or renege on our deal. It’s just that you’re so... God, Harley, I can’t even think straight when I’m with you. I can’t see you without wanting to kiss you, and I can’t kiss you without wanting to... I’ve got no self-control with you. I’m like some goofy adolescent, all hormones and heat. I want you so much... too much.”
She wanted to tell him that she wanted him, too. She wanted to tell him that he could abandon his self-control, abandon the deal... but she didn’t. As ardently as she desired him, it was not in her nature to be the one to initiate things. She simply nodded and said nothing.
He took her face between his palms. “I promise you I’ll keep to our deal. I won’t try to rush things. We’re doing this your way. I agreed to that. That’s the way it’ll be.” His eyes were so enormous, so sincere. A lump filled Harley’s throat and she nodded again. He kissed her forehead lightly. “It’s late. You must be tired.”
Taking her by the hand, he led her inside. At the bottom of the stairs they said good-night and went to their separate rooms.
CHAPTER TEN
DURING THE ENSUING WEEKS Tucker fulfilled his promise. He rarely touched Harley, and his infrequent kisses were light. Even though she knew why he restrained himself, his doing so struck her as bizarre, considering how strongly he had come on to her at first. It was almost like being courted. He joked about their old-fashioned, platonic relationship, saying it was the first time he had actually been forced to get to know a woman before he could go to bed with her. Unaccustomed though he was to the role of gentleman suitor, he nevertheless played it well. Were it not for the transparent longing she occasionally glimpsed in his eyes, she might even have thought he had lost interest in her.
He spent a great deal of time with his guitar, working on new songs, and every Friday night he played at Doug’s club, always to a large and enthusiastic crowd. He always insisted she accompany him, for moral support. He took her other places, as well; places she had never been, to do things she had never done. One day he rented a noisy little two-seater airplane and took her on a bird’s-eye tour of Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs. The next week they went to a different airstrip and he took them up in a sailplane, which she found more to her liking; it was so quiet, so smooth, almost as if she herself had wings. But her favorite new activity was sailing, in Phil’s little Flying Scot, the Pacemaker. She took to it instantly, and by the end of their first day out, was pulling her weight like a seasoned veteran, or so Tucker said. She loved it—the water, the wind, the freedom, even the hard work—and begged him to take her out whenever the weather permitted. Tucker said it looked like she was born to sail, and she couldn’t disagree with him. She could easily understand his envy of his father for being able to spend the entire summer aboard the Anjelica in the Caribbean.
They orchestrated their chores around their workout schedules. Harley continued her daily swim and run, although she abandoned her original inflexible schedule—Tucker’s influence. He adopted the routine he had outlined to her the night they shook hands on their deal. Although, like Harley, he did not adhere to a fixed schedule, every day he managed to work in about two hours in the gym and at least one in the pool, swimming laps. As time went on, Harley noted that not only did his form and speed improve considerably, he no longer swam in pain, or at least, none that showed.
Every once in a while Harley would find herself staring at Tucker as he crouched at the edge of the pool, stopwatch in hand, and thinking, Is this the same raggedy, disheveled man who broke into the house at one in the morning and played the Moonlight Sonata on R.H.’s grand piano? He remained clean-shaven, and although his hair quickly grew out of its severe cut, it was still very short. It took mere days for the sun to gild it, and to burnish his skin a golden brown. He credited his father’s genes for the blond highlights and his mother’s for the overnight tan.
As his conditioning improved, his body looked more and more like that of an Olympic swimmer—broad-shouldered, well muscled, but sleek. The wounds on his torso and leg became less noticeable as those muscle groups bulked up, and, more and more, he was able to do without his cane. It pleased Harley to see him walk unaided, his limp growing less pronounced as time went by.
Every evening after supper they met in the pool for their one-lap challenge. In the beginning, Tucker never came close, but as the weeks passed and he got faster, it became clear to Harley that it was just a matter of time before he caught her. By the beginning of August, he was finishing right on her heels. She would touch the deck at the deep end, and within a heartbeat he would appear next to her, grab the deck, grin, and haul himself out of the water. He would win any day now.
R.H. was not expected back until the first of September. Would Tucker bolt the morning after claiming his “prize,” or would he wait for his father to return, and then leave? How would she feel when he left? With grim amusement she thought back to the time when she first made the deal, smugly certain that he could never catch her. Now that she knew he would, now that she eagerly looked forward to that day, to the prospect of sharing a bed with Tucker, she had to face the heartbreak that was certain to follow. He would leave—it was the only way he knew—and she would suffer. She tried to keep such thoughts from her mind, to enjoy her summer with Tucker
and not think of its inevitable end.
As Harley dried the last of the supper dishes and put them away, Tucker opened up the fridge and withdrew the bottle of champagne that he’d been keeping cold for over two weeks now.
Harley’s eyes widened. “You mean I’m finally going to find out what that champagne is for?”
“Yes, ma’am. You’d better put on something warm. I’m taking you down to the beach for a celebratory toast, and it gets cool down there at night.”
She frowned. “Wait a minute. You can’t get down to the beach. You’ve never been down there. I mean, not since you’ve been back.”
He shrugged. I’m going to give it a shot. I think I’m up to it now.”
“And what about our evening swim? It’s almost time for that. I’m surprised you’d want to miss that.”
He smiled. “It’s a trade-off, but tonight I’d prefer the beach.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Look, I know you find it hard to be spontaneous—”
“No, I don’t!”
“Prove it.”
“Give me ten minutes to get into some jeans and a sweater.”
TEN MINUTES LATER they were picking their way down the boulder stairway to the beach. Harley insisted on carrying the two blankets and the small knapsack that Tucker had filled. Even empty-handed, he found the descent challenging, although not as painful as he would have thought. His physical condition was light-years from what it had been six weeks ago, when he first came to Hale’s Point. He hadn’t picked up his cane in days, although his gait was still awkward and stiff-legged. The only real pain he still felt was when he crouched at the edge of the pool, waiting to spring. Any kind of kneeling or squatting was also problematic, but usually easy enough to avoid.
He was free of his cane and his cigarettes, he was strong, he was fast, and he was happy—and he had Harley to thank for all that. Thanking Harley reminded him of the little bag in the front pocket of his jeans. He patted it just to make sure—it was still there.
August had always been his favorite month. The beach was at its best in August; the water warm, and the sunsets, like tonight’s, spectacular. Tucker and Harley paused at the bottom of the sandy precipice to admire the streaks of peach and gold and purple that stained the darkening sky to the west.
Giggles from behind the stand of pines separating the Hales’ beach from the Tiltons’ caught their attention, and they turned to see Brenna, completely naked, run out from behind them, toward the water. Jamie, also naked, followed her, and, overtaking her, tackled her to the sand. Their giggles turned to shrieks and then reverted to laughter when they realized they were being watched, and they jumped up and darted back behind the pines. Ever since the first night Tucker had played at the club—the night Harley had kissed Jamie for Brenna’s benefit—the young couple had been inseparable. Tucker doubted the relationship would last beyond the summer. It certainly would not survive past Brenna’s one-year au pair’s stint in the States. A relationship built on lust had its charms, but those charms were generally short-lived. Such a relationship was not worth salvaging or mourning, unlike, say, Phil’s relationship with Kat.
Phil had abandoned his pursuit of Harley the moment he saw his wife again, at the club. If only he would swallow his pride and throw himself at Kat’s feet. But he refused to give his wife the opportunity to forgive him, and as a result, a vital marriage was going down the tubes.
Tucker led Harley some distance to the east, past the jetty and well into the undeveloped, wooded part of the Hale property, to the piece of shore that had been his favorite as a boy—a patch of beach surrounded on three sides by a semicircle of large boulders opening toward the Sound, which afforded almost-complete privacy. They would only be visible to someone walking along the wet sand at the water’s edge, which anyone was legally permitted to do on privately owned beaches—but given the hour and their remote location, Tucker thought that unlikely. Seclusion was important to him tonight. He wanted to be alone with Harley, just the two of them in his favorite place—a place he had not seen for over twenty years. One of the disadvantages of his estrangement from his father was the possibility that he might not inherit this property. He cared nothing for its monetary value, immense though that must be. He cared about his favorite spot.
He spread one of the blankets, built a fire next to it from fallen logs, and lit it with the matches he had brought. Then, to Harley’s obvious and very gratifying delight, he withdrew from the knapsack several pieces of antique cut crystal—a bowl, a vase, and two champagne flutes, each wrapped in dish towels to prevent breakage—and arranged them in the middle of the blanket. The bowl he filled with cherries and peaches, and the vase with lavender from the border by the stone wall. After opening the champagne, he filled the two glasses and, sitting close to Harley, handed her one. The firelight glittered on the crystal and danced in her eyes.
“Don’t you think it’s time you told me what we’re celebrating?” she asked. He loved her smile. On a very serious person, a smile was especially precious and especially beautiful. “It must be something important. I mean, you climbed all the way down here, and that couldn’t have been easy.”
He said, “We’re celebrating the fact that I was able to climb all the way down here, even though it wasn’t easy. Cheers.” He raised his glass. Harley, grinning incredulously, touched her glass to his; they rang like bells.
She took a sip. “Let me get this straight. You came down here so you could celebrate coming down here?”
He tilted the glass to his lips. The bubbles tickled his nose; the champagne was dry and delicious. “Yes.” He looked around at the little protected stretch of sand and said, “This is a special place for me. I spent a lot of time in this one spot when I was a boy. Built a lot of bonfires here, spent a lot of nights sleeping out here under the stars, thinking about things, wondering what the future held. I wanted to bring you here. I wanted to share this place with you.”
The leaping flames shimmered in her eyes. Her throat moved. “Thank you.”
“I’m the one who should be thanking you. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have seen this place again. If it weren’t for you... God, if it weren’t for you, I’d be back up in Alaska wishing I was here, choking on cigarettes and stumbling around with my cane. I’ve been through a lot of changes lately, good changes, and they’re your doing. So, thanks.”
He took her by the chin and gently tilted her face up toward his. The kiss was careful, soft. He had promised her a long time ago that he would not allow himself to get carried away, and he intended to keep that promise. Setting his glass down in the sand next to the blanket, he reached into his front pocket and pulled out the little black velvet bag. He took her free hand and placed the bag in it. “I want you to have this.”
She set her glass down also. Her eyes were unblinking, her voice, when she spoke, was high and childlike. “What is it?”
“Open it.”
Tentatively she loosened the gold, tasseled drawstring and spilled the contents of the bag into the palm of her hand. When she realized what she held, she sat up straight with a startled intake of breath. “Tucker! Your mother’s earrings!”
“I want you to have them.”
She held one up. It dangled heavily from her fingers, ornate gold filigree surrounding a cluster of rubies. “These—these are four hundred years old!”
“Probably more like five.” He picked up his glass and swallowed some more champagne.
“I can’t accept them,” she said, with conviction, returning them to the bag.
He said, “I’m not taking them back. Try them on. I want to see you with gold and rubies next to your skin. You were never meant to wear silver.”
She looked at him. “Who owns these?”
He reclined next to her, enjoying her reaction. “You do.”
“No, no, I mean—”
“I own all of my mother’s jewelry. She left it to me in her will. It’s spent the last three decades in a safe
-deposit box in the bank in NoMo.”
“You never wanted it?”
“What would I do with it?”
“Sell it to a museum. It must be worth a fortune.”
“I’d never sell my mother’s jewelry. Chet tried to talk me into it when I first left home. The idea made me sick.”
“Donate it, then. Or lend it, for exhibits. I’ll bet the folks at the Met would love to get their hands on that collection.”
He thought that one over. “It never occurred to me. Maybe I will lend them out someday.” He took the little bag from her hand and slipped it into the front pocket of her jeans. “Except for these. They’re yours, whether you want them or not.” He chose his next words carefully, and watched her closely for her reaction. “But maybe I’ll take the rest with me... when I leave.”
Her eyes darted to his and then quickly away. She studied the fire. “That seems wise. Keep them close at hand. There are safe-deposit boxes in Alaska, I’m sure.”
“I’m sure there are, but I don’t necessarily plan on going back there. I moved to Alaska because it was the farthest away from Florida I could get without leaving the country. I may be ready for a middle ground, now.”
“Such as?”
He drank some more champagne and watched her over the top of the glass. “Long Island’s nice.”
She looked at him. “What would you do here? Something with airplanes?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had my fill of airplanes for the time being.”
“Then what, if not music? Drive a forklift? Patch roofs?”
He put the glass down and lay on his back with his arms folded behind his head. The sky was an ever-deepening violet scattered with winking pinpoints of light. “Maybe I’ll buy a sailboat and sail around the world and think about it for a while.”
“Mmm.” From the corner of his eye he saw her looking at him. “Nice work if you can get it.”
They drank their champagne in silence for a while. When their glasses became empty, he refilled them. He tried to clear his mind of all thoughts. He listened to the waves and the popping of the fire, breathed in the salt air and the sharp woodsmoke. He ate a peach and reveled in its sweet perfume. He watched Harley’s mouth—that amazing mouth— close over a cherry and nibble it off the stem.
The Black Sheep Page 15