Man Trouble (8 page)

“She'll need a doctor,” the little man said to Jake. “You wait here. I'll get help.”

“Hold it,” Jake said. “Who
are
you?”

“You remember Carter,” Sandra said, from the ground. “Carter McKee. He was at your party last night.”

“Yes,” Jake said, although he hadn't remembered the man's name. “And you're Sandra's…?”
Don't tell me you're her lawyer
.

“Cousin,” Sandra said at the same moment that Carter McKee said, “Brother.”

Sandra narrowed her eyes at Carter. “He's my cousin,” she said. “First cousin, so he's been like a brother to me. He's a writer, too. He specializes in biographies.”

“I'll get help,” Carter said again. “Don't leave Sandra alone. She's prone to fainting spells.”

He rushed off. He was headed for the pool terrace, but Jake knew that the closest phone was just behind them, in the boathouse.

“I'll call the infirmary,” he said. “It'll be just a minute.”

Sandra sighed. “No, wait,” she said. She sounded embarrassed and annoyed. “Don't bother. I'm fine.”

Jake watched curiously as she rose to her feet and brushed herself off. “It's not as bad as I thought,” she said, demonstrating by standing on the foot in question. “See? Carter overreacted.”

“That's good,” Jake said. “Still, you should have it checked.”

“I will. But I'm perfectly able to go and find the doctor on my own. You don't need to worry about me—you'd rather be out there on the water, wouldn't you?”

“Not at all,” Jake said automatically. She was right, but only a cad would have admitted it. This hour—now swiftly disappearing—was his only free time for the rest of the day.

“You're very gracious,” Sandra said. He could see that she didn't believe him. “I'm sorry that I fell on you.”

“No problem,” Jake said. He hadn't really minded that part. “But you might want to rethink your shoe strategy.”

She laughed, unexpectedly. It was a quick gleam of a grin that crinkled the corners of her eyes and gave her face a sudden wry humor that contrasted with her flashy clothes and makeup. She was pretty, he thought, surprised. He had found her physically attractive when he first saw her, but this was something more subtle, and more interesting.

“You were running after me,” he said, remembering. “Why? What were you going to say?”

Sandra gazed at him for a moment. “Would you believe,” she said, “I have no idea.”

“You belong to me, Angeline,” said Lord Percy. “Never forget that.” The softness of his voice was belied by the coldness in his eyes, and Angeline shivered, remembering the tortured screams of the horse thief echoing within the crumbling walls of the abbey. “You are my wife, and that pirate will never soil you with his filthy hands. I'll see both of you dead first.”

Molly had come right back to the cottage after saying good-bye to Jake, without waiting for Carter to return with the doctor. She had ordered lunch from room service: fresh fish cooked in spiced coconut milk, served with tropical fruit salad and champagne. The butler had brought it on a tray, and she had eaten it in this very chair, on the deck outside the cottage, and then spent the next hour napping in the sun.

She was not actually writing a sequel to
Pirate Gold,
of course, and had no intention of doing so, despite the frantic pleas of her agent. She didn't have time. In the past two years, her only academic output had been two journal articles and a textbook chapter adapted from her book about eighteenth-century seafaring women. That wasn't enough to earn tenure at Belden, where “publish or perish” was an imperative. If she wanted to survive, she needed to focus her thoughts and her energy on a real project.

Unfortunately, her thoughts had not been cooperating.
Pirate Gold
had begun as a movielike daydream that ran through her head whenever she was tired, bored, or in a faculty meeting, and merely typing the words “THE END” at the bottom of page 642 had not stopped the flow of the story.

It wasn't her fault. She had gotten attached to her characters, and the idea of cutting them off and not thinking about them anymore made her feel like a murderer. Anyway, she enjoyed the daydream. It relaxed her. Just because she allowed herself to indulge in the story—and occasionally wrote down some of the better passages—didn't mean that she was writing another novel. She had no intention of making this kind of thing a way of life. It could be somebody else's life, certainly, but it wasn't hers.

She dozed off again and woke to the sound of Carter's voice.

“
There
you are,” he said. He sounded petulant. “Where have you
been?
I looked everywhere for you. I even came back to the cottage, but I didn't see you out here, so I left again. Where's Jake? Why didn't you wait for me to come back?”

Molly kept her eyes closed, hoping that he would think she was still asleep and go away. After the excitement of the morning, she just wanted to be left alone.

“Molly! It was a brilliant plan. It was divine inspiration. What happened?”

He was not going to go away. Molly opened her eyes. “Let me get this straight,” she said, sitting up. “Your idea of divine inspiration is sticking a kayak paddle between my knees and tripping me? I could have broken my leg! Or was that also part of your plan?”

“I knew you'd be fine,” Carter said hastily. “And it worked, didn't it? It was perfect! It was genius. We had Jake right where we wanted him, on day
two.
Do you know what this means? We're
ahead
of
schedule
!”

“You're out of control, Carter,” Molly said. But despite her irritation, she had to admit that the morning had not turned out to be the disaster she'd feared. Amazingly, she was sure that she'd seen a spark of interest in Jake Berenger's eyes when he looked at her. It was far from the instant magic that Carter had predicted, but it was enough to boost her confidence. He may not have fallen madly in love with her, but he hadn't ignored her, either. It was possible that she was not a complete loser at the flirting game. Of course, the Sandra suit had had everything to do with it, but still…

“Why didn't you wait for me to come with the doctor?” Carter repeated. “Jake would have waited with you. He wouldn't abandon a woman in distress. It was a perfect plan.”

“No, it wasn't,” Molly said. “Maybe your own personal fantasy is to have a pneumatic blonde landing on you like a leopard out of a tree, but I'm sure that Jake is used to being chased, and he's probably very tired of fending off women. Did you see the look he gave me when you started fussing about my ankle? He was suspicious. It was the wrong strategy. We need to slow down.”

“Slow down!” Carter exclaimed. “We can't slow down. This is my only chance, and we have less than a week.”

“I know,” Molly said. “But if you make this look too obvious, it's not going to work. You don't want to ruin your only chance, do you?”

Carter stared at her. “How can you be so sure?”

“Instinct,” Molly said.

“You told me that your feminine wiles dried up and blew away while you were in grad school.”

Molly smiled. “It seems,” she said, “that I have a few left.”

Molly took the rest of the afternoon off of being Sandra, and ended up in the Gold Bay gift shop, looking for something to read. She was also—though she would never have admitted it to anyone—curious to know if the shop carried the recently released paperback version of
Pirate Gold.

It did. She sidled over to the book rack, feeling as self-conscious as a teenager buying pornography. She lifted one of the hefty paperbacks, running her finger over the raised gold lettering of the title, and stared down at it. It was very thick, she thought, oddly pleased. The size and weight of the book made it seem like a tiny brick. And the cover art was really much better than the other books on the rack…

“Excuse me, Professor Shaw?” said a female voice behind her. Molly jumped and dropped the paperback. It thudded to the floor, landing on its spine with the pages fanning out.

“Oh! I'm so sorry,” said the owner of the voice, a young woman in a Gold Bay uniform. “I didn't mean to scare you. I'm Jennifer Martin, the assistant activities director. I've been hoping for a chance to say hello. I wanted to tell you that I totally enjoyed your book!”

Molly's mouth dropped open in horror. She stared at the young woman, unable to speak. It was happening, just as she'd feared. There was no way to keep this kind of secret from the resort staff. They were everywhere! The butler had figured it out, or else one of the housekeepers had found the Sandra wig hidden in her closet. If Jennifer Martin knew the truth, then surely everyone knew. It was only a matter of time until the media heard about it, and her whole life was ruined.

Molly tried to take a breath, but her throat had closed up. It was just like the recurring nightmare that she'd had right after the publication of
Pirate Gold
—the one where she walked into her freshman lecture class and found every seat occupied by the trustees of Belden College, all wearing British judicial wigs, and pointing accusingly at her. In the dream, her father had been in the crowd, and he had refused to acknowledge her.

“Here, let me get that,” Jennifer Martin said, bending to pick up the copy of
Pirate Gold.
She handed it back to Molly. “Well, it's good to see that even professors do a little light reading on vacation.”

“What?” Molly croaked.

Jennifer pointed to the paperback. “I thought it was good, but I don't know if you'll like it.” She widened her eyes. “Did you know that Sandra St. Claire is here this week? I've been looking for her, but I haven't seen her yet.”

Molly was having a very hard time processing the conversation. “I'm sorry,” she said weakly. “I thought you said that you read…my book?”

Jennifer nodded enthusiastically. “In my senior seminar at Vassar. The class was called Heroines of Herstory. You know, herstory, instead of history? It was a feminist class. The professor was Linda Titlebaum, do you know her?”

“Yes,” Molly said. She and Linda had gone to graduate school together. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and felt the mantle of doom lifting, miraculously, from her shoulders. A silly smile crept over her face. “You read my book,” she said, and the smile became a grin. “
My
book. You read
Maritime Wives.
In school. That's wonderful.”

“Actually,” Jennifer said, “I had a great idea. I was thinking that since you know so much about Caribbean history, maybe you could give an evening lecture for the other guests.”

“A lecture? Would people actually come? They're on vacation…”

“Oh, totally!” Jennifer exclaimed. “Vacations aren't just about getting a tan anymore. Our guests love having a chance to expand their minds. Usually, we fly people in from the University of Miami. We don't get a lot of professors coming here as guests.”

Molly was not surprised to hear that. She still had not recovered from the shock of learning how much it cost to rent their cottage for a week. Elaine had not been exaggerating when she'd spoken of the high cost of a Gold Bay vacation.

“I don't have my notes with me,” she said. “I'm not sure that I can just…”

“I know it's a lot to ask,” Jennifer said apologetically. “And I'm sure that my boss would be glad to offer you ten percent off of your room charge as a thank-you gesture.”

“Deal,” Molly said immediately. “When do you want me to do it?”

“How about tonight? Tuesday is normally our lecture night. We were scheduled to have a discussion of yoga theory, by Rama Guru. He's a very famous swami to the stars, and he's a guest this week, too. But he had to cancel, because he accidentally ate a salad with bacon bits, and now his chakras are unbalanced.”

“I…could probably put together something for tonight,” Molly said. “Could you give me a little more of an idea of what you want? Are there any general guidelines that I should follow?”

“Pirates,” Jennifer said immediately.

“Pirates?” Molly repeated.

“Totally! People love pirates. It would be really exciting to have a lecture about some of the horrible things that the pirates did. The ones in this area, I mean. I'd like to keep it local. Also, maybe you could talk a little about Bonny Mary Morgan? She lived on this island, but you probably know that.”

“No,” Molly said, “I didn't. Are you sure?” It was the most interesting thing she'd heard in days. Mary Morgan was the most notorious of a very small group of eighteenth-century women who could technically be called pirates, meaning that they had either crewed on or—in Mary's case—captained pirate ships. The few known female pirates had all dressed as men, and their shipmates had generally believed them to be teenage boys. Mary had been special, though. She had become a feared and revered pirate queen, commanding her own ship while dressed in a feathered hat and fine silk petticoats, an affectation that had inspired her nickname. Molly remembered reading that Mary had also owned a sugar plantation on an island near Antigua.

Jennifer nodded. “I heard about Mary from the woman I replaced. She was a total history buff, and she knew everything about this place. It used to be called Cane Island, back when the government of Antigua owned it. The ruins of Mary's plantation are still over on the west side of the island, near the mangrove swamp.”

“I can't believe it,” Molly said. “Could I go and see the site?” She had been fascinated by the story of Bonny Mary since she had first read about the seafaring hellion, and the lurid stories of Mary's life had influenced parts of
Pirate Gold.

Jennifer looked dubious. “There's not much to see,” she said. “And it's kind of a mess over there right now, with all the construction. But the views are nice. If you really want to go, I could arrange a guide for you. It's only a fifteen-minute drive from here.”

Molly nodded eagerly. She knew from her research that very little had been written about Bonny Mary's life, and it had just occurred to her that a biography of the female pirate, set into an analysis of Mary's historical and cultural milieu, could be just the academic project that she needed.