Her Name Will Be Faith (21 page)

"Oh, hi." Immediately her spirits lifted.

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"Sweetheart! How have you been? I've been half
out of my mind with
worry. I know I'm
chancing my arm, but I just had to call. How's the
boy?"

She told him about Owen Michael's
recovery, and how she really
had not felt
up to doing anything over the weekend but visiting him. Deliberately she never
mentioned a word about Michael, but when she
had
finished he said, "Hold on a minute. Where does your husband figure
in
all this? Don't tell me he's gone out and left you alone?"

"Gone out!" she
exclaimed. "Oh, he's gone out, all right. Right out
into the Atlantic. I told you he was leaving on Friday."

Richard paused, before slowly
responding. "Out into the Atlantic? You
mean on his yacht? But couldn't you get a message
to him through one
of the port radio
stations?"

"I got a message to him before he ever left
Newport."

"And he went anyhow?"

The incredulous note in his voice
made tears sting her eyes. "Of
course,"
she said huskily. "He's racing, you see. Nothing else matters."

"Not even his son's life?
Didn't he know how serious the situation
was?"
he persisted.

"I told him. Before he left Newport."

Richard heard the sob in her
voice. "Would you like me to come over?"

To her apartment. Washington was off duty, but the
other porter,
Edwardes, would be there, and
would record the visit, as he was required
to do. But what did it
matter?

"Yes. Yes, please."

At another time, in a different
mood, she would have been aware that
a
decision had been taken, that from here on this was her man and she would
belong to him, body and soul. Now she only knew she urgently needed all the
love, sympathy and understanding he had to offer. She needed his strength and
gentleness, and his love.

The bedroom mirror reflected a
drab, defeated creature – a refugee
from
a terrible disaster. And wasn't she just that? Hadn't the life she had been
building, striving to achieve, for the past twelve years – ever since
agreeing to marry Michael – just been swept out from under her feet? It
was all gone – finished. And now?

Jo stripped off her T-shirt and headed for the
bathroom. A cold wash
would help her to pull
herself together. Then she could start picking up
the pieces… and begin all over again. Water dripped
from her chin
over the vanity basin as she reached for a towel –
and the lobby phone
buzzed. She just had time
to slip into a clean shirt and brush her hair
before opening the door.

It was almost like welcoming a
true husband home from the office. She
nestled
gratefully into Richard's arms and allowed a glorious peace and comfort to
envelop her. It was like arriving at safety after a tortuous and dangerous
journey – finding the place where one belonged. In the lounge
Richard sat on the settee and asked what she would
drink. He explored
the cocktail bar,
filled two glasses, and returned to sit beside her, watched
her sip her
drink, saw the worry and pain which had lined her face in the few days since he
had last seen her – and it hurt him. He longed to take her away from this
magnificent apartment, full of hellish protection, blot out all her unhappy
past – and his own. Then a thought occurred to him. "What have you
eaten today?"

"I had some soup, and an apple," she said
guiltily, waiting for his reproach.

It didn't come. Instead he got up
and said, "Put on a lively tape while
I
fix some food," and she heard him opening and shutting doors as he
searched through the kitchen.

From the icebox and fridge he
produced melon and prawn cocktail,
and a
huge Spanish omelet filled with chopped ham, sweet peppers, onions and herbs,
together with a salad.

An open bottle of Californian white filled two glasses
each, enough to
lift Jo's spirits, when
Richard said, "Let's drink to Owen Michael, who
has, I think,
unwittingly provided the key to some big decisions. Thank
God he's mending quickly. And now, a toast to us,
and our future –
together!"

Jo gulped and choked.
"Together? Aren't you jumping the gun a
bit?"

"Well, I hope not. It's what we both want, isn't
it?"

She gazed at him, and nodded, the background scherzo
gradually absorbing the pace of her response.

"Great. Then that's settled. It's Jo and Richard
– Richard and Jo from here on in. That's the important decision. The how,
where and when are comparatively minor details, to be sorted out later, when
your husband comes back from his race."

"Yes, Richard," she agreed meekly, but a
sparkle had crept back into her eyes, and her breathing had quickened as the
joy and confidence of this man swept away the last lingering clouds of
uncertainty. Because he would solve all the problems; she had to believe that.
"That was delicious. You're a marvelous cook." Jo sat back, smiling
across the empty plates.

"Only with simple things. Nothing exotic. Now..."
He stood and collected the dishes. "Yogurt, followed by coffee."

"Great. Here, let me..."

"Sit down, woman. Your turn
will come, but not today." But she did
get
up later to pour brandies to sip with their coffees.

They changed tapes while
clearing the kitchen together, stood watching
rows of head and tail lights lining the streets
below, in opposite directions,
and when the current tape finished Jo looked at her watch and said,
"Time for bed," gazing at him for a moment
before adding, "Coming?"

She instinctively led him to the spare bedroom,
neither of them would be happy in Michael's bed. But this was the night for
which she had been waiting, and longing, for more than a month.

"Do you know," Richard said, "how many
times I have dreamed of just this moment?"

"This
moment?"
Jo asked, resting her head on his shoulder. They had climaxed virtually
together, for the first time, and she was aware only of contentment.

"Yes. I'll tell you a secret: there have been
dozens of women I have thought about, that I'd like to have in bed with me. But
only one or two I've really wanted to spend the night with."

"One or two," she remarked, jokingly.

"Only one, now." He looked down at her.
"Will you marry me?"

"Oh, God, if I can, Richard. If I can. If..."

"I know." He held her close, and then
suddenly the tenderness was replaced by tension.

"What's the matter?" She raised her head.

"It's just past midnight.
There's a system I should get an update
on."

Oh, God, she thought; not a workaholic.
"I thought you were off for
the
evening."

"I am. But I told Julian,
that's my assistant, that I'd keep in touch
before going to bed. I mean, to sleep," he grinned.
"It's that big thing
just west of
the Cape Verdes. You remember."

"I remember," she said. "What's it
doing now?"

"Moving west. Slowly. But it was showing signs of
tightening. I know Mark was worried about it when last he called. He was out
there today again, and promised to let me have an update."

"So you want to go off and look at a map."

"I don't particularly want to, but Julian is
expecting me, and won't stop tracking until I get there. I could come
back," he suggested tentatively.
"I'm
expecting you'll do that," she said. "But just to make sure you
do,
I'll come with you and take a look at this map too."

The studio was quiet. The
late-night news programs were finished,
and
now there was only a midnight chat show going out, to be followed by two old
movies. Richard took Jo into the weather room, where Julian was sifting through
various charts. "Well, hey, Richard," he remarked. "What kept
you?"

"I was dining out,"
Richard told him. "You remember Josephine
Donnelly, from
Profiles?"

"Hi, Jo," Julian said. "Don't tell me,
you want to look at that system." He laid an enlarged photograph on the
desk. "I'll tell you, it
is
a system."

Richard studied the print, and Jo
looked round his arm. She could
make out the coast of Africa, and the offshore islands;
they had been
inked in. Stretching from
immediately west of the Cape Verdes – which
were now clear of cloud – a considerable distance out into the
Atlantic
was a white mass, very like the whipped cream on the photograph
of hurricane Anita in Richard's office, with just the traces of a circulatory
movement.

"Your friend Mark Hammond called," Julian
said. "He just got back
from having a
closer look. Flew right into it, and couldn't find any clearly
defined
eye as yet, but he says it's tightening all the time."

"Course?" Richard asked.

"Oh, just north of west, and
moving real slow. Not more than ten
knots.
Mark says it still hasn't got winds of more than forty knots round the center.
But as I said, he reckons it's going to improve on that."

"It's enormous," Jo
whispered. She was realizing that if Anita had
seemed to cover the entire Gulf of Mexico, this system lay across a
good half of the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's the biggest I have ever seen," Richard
agreed. "Where's the jet stream?"

Julian pulled out the latest
weather chart, and pointed. "Moving north
all the time."

"Christ almighty!" Richard commented.

"Is that really so important?" Jo asked.

"Yes," he told her. "The jet stream is
one of those rivers of air I was talking about. It's the only one we can really
identify, as a matter of fact. It's very big, very high, and very fast; you
really are talking about
phenomenal speeds up
there, two hundred miles an hour plus. Usually
it has only a marginal
effect on surface weather; obviously, when it's blowing from the Arctic towards
the south you get cold upper altitude winds and a general drop in temperature,
and vice versa. It's also very important to high altitude flying, either for or
against – it can make quite
a
difference in time between here and London, for instance, depending
on
whether a pilot can use it or has to buck it. But it is also useful for
dispersing hurricanes.

"You remember I told you, when hot air rises very
fast and very high
you have a hurricane. Now
obviously, the higher that wind can get into
the atmosphere, without
dissipating, the stronger the circulation around
the center of the depression is going to be. The jet stream plays an
important part in this. In fact, I am pretty sure
it's been responsible for
the fact that not one of those five storms
we've had so far this year have developed. It's been unusually far south, you
see, and coming out of the central Pacific, too. So those storms each started
their upward spiral, and
when they got above
110,000 feet, the jet stream blew them apart, and
they collapsed. But if
it's now moving north, this system could be left to develop as much as it
wants. And it has the time." He looked at the map again, and then at the
satellite photograph. "Ten knots, you say, Julian? Working on where the
center should be now, that means five days to Puerto Rico, on that course. Five
days over some of the warmest water we've had for ages."

"So you reckon this could be the big one,"
Jo said.

He shrugged. "After what's happened so far this
year, your guess is as good as mine. But it is one hell of a big system. If
that circulation does increase… we could have a problem."

"Your ultimate storm?"

He grinned. "Any system could become my ultimate
storm, if all the conditions were right."

"And you've just said they could be right,
now."

"Well… yes. But they've seemed to be right
before, and we haven't had that big one. The odds are against it happening this
time."

"If it does become a storm," she asked,
"what might it be called?"

"All the names are selected before the hurricane
season even begins."

Julian looked at the list pinned
up over his desk. "As it will be number
six for this year, it'll be a she, and her name will be Faith. Now, how
can a system with a name like Faith cause any damage?"

"Let's all have faith that you're right,"
Richard quipped, and held Jo's hand as he escorted her out of the office.