Hale's Point (27 page)

He couldn’t look her in the face. “I’m afraid I won’t be here
then.”

There was only a brief pause. “You’re going to leave right
after your father gets home? ‘Hi, Dad, bye, Dad’?”

“No. Probably before.”

A longer pause this time. “
Before
? They’ll be here within the hour.”

He inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry, Harley. It’s time to cut my
losses.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s what you said that first night,
when you walked away in the rain. That you knew how to cut your losses. If you
had followed your instincts then and bolted, you’d still be in Alaska.”

“And I’d still walk with a cane and I’d still be smoking and
I’d still be in constant pain. I know. I’m glad I stayed and I’ll always feel
indebted to you for what you’ve done for me. I’ll always love you.” He spoke
the words without intending to,
but there they were. She stared at him. “I love you, Harley. I do. You’re the
first woman I ever loved, and the first one I ever waited for, ever struggled
for, ever tried to become a better person for. I wanted things to work out
between us, but when push came to shove, we just fell apart. Maybe we’re just
too different to make a relationship work.”

“Phil and Kitty are different, and their relationship works.
They weathered a crisis and overcame it because Phil followed your advice. He
didn’t give up. That’s what you do when you’re in it for the long haul. You
make it work. You fix it. You don’t bolt. I know you don’t know any other way,
and I know you’re afraid—”

“Afraid?”

“Of commitment. But you can’t just walk away and pretend
nothing happened. Not this time, Tucker. It’s not fair. You can’t make me fall
in love with you and then…” Her chin trembled, her eyes were filled with sudden
tears. Tucker took her hand. Seeming angry with herself, she rubbed the tears
from her eyes. “And then just leave!”

Tucker sat wordlessly for a moment, awed by her teary
declaration of love.
So this is what it’s
like when two people are in love,
he thought.
This is pretty scary stuff.

Softly he said, “I’d drive you crazy. Just like I drove my
father crazy. You’re a lot like him. You like things just so. I like them
pretty much however they fall.”

“Don’t underestimate your influence,” she said. “I don’t iron
my blue jeans anymore.”

Tucker smiled. “Gee, and I was kind of getting used to those
creases.”

She said, “Well, they’re history. And if I can change, your
father can, too. At least stay till he gets here. He’ll be expecting you. Liz
will have told him you’re here.”

“He’ll consider himself lucky not to have to confront me.”

“Confront you? You’re his son.”

Tucker rubbed the back of his neck. She just didn’t get it. “He
thinks I just got out of prison, Harley. He thinks I made my living selling
dope. He’s undoubtedly ashamed of me and horrified that I’ve spent the past six
weeks living in his home.”

“So this is your opportunity to set him straight. Try telling
him what really happened. There’s no reason to think he’ll be as dense about it
as I was. Give him the benefit of the—”

“I’m telling you, it won’t work. We’re two personalities that
just don’t mix. And now that I’ve done time, justified or not, there’s that
stigma on top of everything else. He hated me then, and he’ll hate me even more
now.”

“
Hated you
? Did you
ever stop to wonder why he kept your room the same for twenty-one years? Why he’s
got two pictures of you on his desk?” Tucker had no instant answer for that.
She curled around in the passenger seat to face him. “Obviously he missed you.
He probably regretted having made the mistakes that forced you to leave.”

“It would have helped if he hadn’t made them in the first
place.”

“Look, I wasn’t there, and I don’t know what really happened,
but I can’t help but draw certain conclusions based on what I do know. I know
that your mother took her own life, and I know that your father was at least
partially responsible. It’s doubtful that he ever acknowledged that
responsibility to himself. People tend to protect themselves by denying that
they caused something terrible to happen—in your father’s case, the suicide of
a woman he seems to have truly loved. So he convinced himself that the fault
lay not with him, but with
Anjelica
—in other words,
that she was unstable. Given her impulsive, creative nature, so different from
his own, that was an easy mental leap for him.”

“And an unfair one.”

“Possibly. Then there was you. He worried about you while you
were growing up. You were creative, like her. You were also angry, once you
found her death certificate. He didn’t understand any of it, and it scared him
to think how you might turn out. You could destroy your life, too, unless he
did something to stop it. He had to discipline you, to correct you, for your
own good. Because he loved you. Not because he hated you. I think you know in
your heart that he loves you, despite everything. Why else would you have thought
about him like that after your plane went down, worrying that you’d die and he’d
never know? Why else would you have come all the way back here? You wanted to
patch things up with him.”

He said, “Well… I wanted to see him. It would be great to
patch things up, but I never really thought that was possible.”

“It’s not, if you leave before he even gets here.” After a
moment of silence, she withdrew her hand from his and pulled something from the
pocket of her shorts: the little velvet bag. “I can’t keep these now.”

“Like I said before, I’m not taking them back.”

“Tucker—”

“Can’t I make just this one small gesture to thank you for
everything you’ve done for me? Don’t deprive me of that right. Accept them.
Please.” He could see the hesitation in her eyes, and then the small nod. “I’d
like to see them on you. Would you mind?”

Shaking the little bag into the palm of her hand, she
inserted the earrings and looked at him. He had to tuck her loose hair behind
her ears in order to see them. He’d been right; she was meant to wear gold and
rubies next to her skin. She looked like a beautiful statue cast in bronze,
with sparkling green jewels for eyes.

He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. Her
arms wrapped around him and her mouth found his. She kissed him with a sense of
urgency and passion that overwhelmed him. He returned the kiss unthinkingly,
his senses rioting.

Releasing her mouth from his, she held him tightly. He felt
the hot tears on her face. “I want you to be more to me than just a summer romance,
just a beautiful memory. I want you to be a beautiful future. Nothing I say or
do can force you to stay. Leave if you have to,” she said in a faltering voice,
“but I can’t stand here and watch you drive away. I don’t think I could take
that.”

She pulled back and looked up at him, her image wavering
through the glaze of Tucker’s own unshed tears. He brushed the wetness from her
cheeks with trembling fingertips.

“I’m going down to the beach,” she said. “I’m going to run.”
He nodded, swallowing hard, not knowing what to say. She stroked his face with
her hand, and he leaned into her palm, his eyes dosed, not wanting her touch to
end. “I hope you’re here when I get back.”

Hearing the car door open, he rubbed his eyes, struggling to
maintain his composure. When he opened them, she was sprinting away, toward the
beach.

***

Harley climbed the boulder stairway and went directly to the
front of the house. Her heart pounded wildly, not from exertion—a half-hour run
was little more than a warm-up to her—but from anticipation. Would Tucker’s
black Jag be sitting in the driveway when she got there?

It wasn’t.

“No,” she whispered, the word catching on the sob that
convulsed her chest.
No. No.
She sank
to the grass and buried her face in her hands, giving herself over to despair.
Her whole body shook as she cried; she was beyond self-control.

You blew it. You blew it.
You stupid idiot. How could you have let him leave? Why did you make him leave?
You blew it.

The sound of a car on the road made her look up. A blue Volvo—Liz’s
Volvo—pulled into the driveway. Harley jumped to her feet and darted into the
house. Hurriedly she dried her face with a dish towel and located her
seldom-worn sunglasses. It wouldn’t do to let them see she’d been crying.
Walking out the front door, she met them on the porch.

It was hard to believe
R.H.
had cut
his trip short for health reasons. He looked remarkably fit for a man pushing
seventy, but that was probably just the tan. His resemblance to his son struck
Harley immediately. His white hair was as short as Tucker’s, and he was nearly
as tall. Against the tan, his silver-blue eyes glared like two tiny
hundred-watt light bulbs. He was not happy.

Liz, tall and slender with a regal bearing, looked like
R.H.’s
twin sister, albeit in a better mood. She wore a
linen pants outfit, and her short gray hair was concealed beneath a straw hat.
The pants surprised Harley; she had never seen her former professor in anything
but Chanel suits. Retirement seemed to have taken the starch out of her
wardrobe.

Liz kissed her on both cheeks.
R.H.
shook her hand and looked around.

Harley cleared her throat. “How was your flight, Mr. Hale?”

“They’re all the same.”

“Have you eaten? I can make you some—”

“Don’t bother,” said Liz. “We stopped on the way.” She looked
around, too. They were looking for Tucker.

“Iced tea?” offered Harley. “Or lemonade. I have some fresh
lemons, I can make you some—”

Liz touched her arm. “We’re fine, my dear. Tell me, where’s
Tucker?”

They both looked at her. Summoning a steady tone, she said, “Tucker’s
gone.” The exact same words
R.H.
had used when she
had asked
him
about Tucker, shortly
after he hired her.
Tucker’s gone.
A
statement both accurate and vague.

Liz hesitated. “Gone. Do you mean he just stepped out for a moment,
or—”

Gravel crunched at the end of the driveway, and all three
heads turned to watch the vehicle that pulled up and parked behind Liz’s blue
Volvo.

It was Tucker’s black Jag.

Harley stared, wide-eyed, as Tucker emerged, his own gaze
riveted on his father.

“Here he is!” Liz crowed, descending the porch steps to kiss
his cheeks. “Look at you! You look wonderful! Where have you been? I began to
worry you’d gotten cold feet.”

Tucker’s eyes met Harley’s for a fleeting second. “I had an
errand to run. I had to go to the bank in the village.”

His words extinguished the tiny flicker of hope that had
sparked within her breast at his reappearance. He had gone to the bank,
obviously to empty out his safe-deposit box. He would be leaving, after all,
although apparently he had taken her advice and decided to see
R.H.
first.

R.H.
studied his son from the porch. “Tucker.”

“Sir.”

No one spoke for a moment, and Harley swore she could hear
the electric crackle of tension in the air.

Finally, nodding toward Tucker’s car,
R.H.
said, “Is that the
XJR
-S?” Slowly he walked down the
steps and over to the car.

Tucker met him there. “That’s right.”

R.H.
ran a respectful hand over the front fender. “What’s
she got inside?”

“Six-liter overhead-cam V-12.”

R.H.
nodded thoughtfully. “Horsepower?”

“Three-eighteen.”

“Pop the hood.” Both men spent a minute admiring the gleaming
new engine. Their resemblance was enhanced by their identical attire: chinos
and dark, weathered polo shirts. “How does she ride?”

Tucker took the keys out of his pocket and handed them to the
older man. With
R.H.
behind the wheel and Tucker in
the passenger seat, the Jag tore out of the driveway and disappeared.

Rejoining Harley on the porch, Liz said, “Men have this
absolutely amazing capacity for superficial communication in even the most
emotion-charged circumstances.” She used the same measured tone with which she
used to deliver her statistics, lectures. “They do it because they’re
frightened, poor things, and they generally use sports or toys as props to
facilitate the process. With
R.H.
and Tucker,
vehicles are the toys of choice. Let’s have a drink.”

“Iced tea or—
”

“Have you got any single-malt Scotch?”

The liquor cabinet was in the study, so that’s where Harley
led Liz, then excused herself to shower and change into a sundress before
joining her. For an hour or so they made preoccupied conversation while they
waited for the men to return. Liz nursed two single-malts straight up; Harley,
two iced teas. They spoke briefly about
R.H.’s
aborted trip. Liz told of
R.H.’s
anguish at feeling
compelled to put the
Anjelica
up for sale, since the strain of sailing her appeared to be more than his heart
could stand.