Patricia Potter (47 page)

She laughed. “You knew.”

“That you wanted to be a lawyer. I think someone mentioned it, but then I could have guessed.”

“Eventually, I want to join the FBI, if they ever open it to women.” It was a challenge of sorts, to see whether he would laugh or condescend, as so many others did.

“Like your father,” he said quietly, and Lisa knew immediately he understood.

“Yes,” she said softly.

“I think,” he said, “you can do anything you want to.”
Like your mother if I hadn’t interfered. But then there wouldn’t be a Lisa.
For the first time in years some of the bitter guilt dissipated.

“You’re right,” Kelly said. “But I’m trying to get her to join my firm when she’s through. Tabor and Evans. Has a nice ring to it.”

“Evans and Tabor,” Lisa complained, and they laughed again at the teasing complaint in her voice.

Meara sat back in her chair, her knife and fork doing little but moving food around. She was terribly restless, her shoulders cramping with tension she couldn’t release. She had no reason to fear; he was perfect with her daughter, revealing nothing other than ordinary interest in and appreciation of a charming young girl. He displayed just as much interest in Kelly and Evelyn. And in her when his eyes turned to her direction and regarded her levelly, all his thoughts and emotions concealed behind that shield she knew so well.

“Tell me how you knew my father,” Lisa said suddenly, and Meara thought the silence stretched out over years instead of the few seconds it actually did.

Chris hesitated, but he had prepared himself for the question since Meara’s call. “We met years ago when he was on a case.”

“What case?”

“I never knew exactly,” Chris answered. “Or how it turned out. I don’t think he could talk about it.”

“But you became friends?”

“Yes,” Chris said. “I think we did.”

It was as fine a combination of nonanswers as Meara had ever heard, a tiny kernel of truth in each one. But Lisa didn’t question them. Her father seldom talked about his cases, and never about ones involving U.S. security.

It was Meara who changed the subject, her first contribution to the conversation all night. “How do you find our coast compared to the Pacific?”

Chris’s eyes fastened on her, grateful for the switch in topics. How to answer? He came to life on this island, not because of the coast but because of her. The difference between day and night, light and darkness.

“It’s…gentler,” he said cautiously. “More peaceful.”

“Not always,” she returned quickly, unable to keep the challenge from her voice, and Lisa looked at her strangely. “We get,” she continued more carefully, “some really bad storms, even hurricanes.”

The slightest movement of a muscle in his cheek was the only indication he knew that wasn’t what she meant at all, that she was remembering that night of violence.

There was a sudden silence at the table, as if all five were aware of a sudden mistral gusting through the room.

Kelly felt it too, the uncomfortable feeling that something was happening he didn’t understand. Meara’s usually composed face looked uncertain, anxious, but then it had been only little more than a month since her husband’s death, and he knew it had affected her much more than she’d let others realize. He had seen it in the despairing way her shoulders had slumped when she walked the beaches, the emptiness in her eyes. Lisa, he suspected, hadn’t seen it, or helped share it, because she had been too involved in her own grief.

Quite gently, he broke the uncomfortable silence by offering more wine, an offer readily accepted by everyone but Chandler, who had nearly a full glass remaining.

Kelly then turned the conversation to the elections the following year. President Kennedy, whose popularity had plummeted, was already campaigning hard. Kelly admitted wryly to being one of the few Republicans in the state, but said he would probably vote for Kennedy this time though not happily. Lisa was a committed Democrat, so the conversation was spirited with good-natured teasing while Meara and Chris listened, a slight smile on the latter’s lips as he enjoyed Lisa’s defense of Kennedy.

“He makes us feel good about ourselves,” she argued. “He cares about people.”

“But he’s ineffectual,” Kelly contended with a smile.

“Only because of stuffy conservative Republicans,” she retorted.

Kelly lowered an eyebrow accusingly. “Stuffy?”

“Stuffy,” she confirmed.

Evelyn Tabor laughed. “My son’s been accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think stuffy is one of them.”

“Well, his politics are,” Lisa said defensively.

Kelly looked over to Chris. “Help!”

“I can’t,” he said with amusement. “I’m on her side.”

“Outnumbered,” Kelly grumbled. “Meara?”

“Don’t look to me for help,” she said, a smile finally playing on her mouth.

“I guess I know when I’m surrounded,” he said. “What about the Yankees…”

The tension faded away as the bickering switched to baseball. Meara didn’t even wonder at Chris’s extensive knowledge of baseball as he and Kelly debated the merits of various west and east coast teams. Nothing, she decided, surprised her any more. She looked up and saw his eyes on her. Then he looked away and she felt suddenly deprived, cold, empty. The feeling lasted as the evening wore on until she was finally, thankfully, able to leave graciously.

Chris took her hand in parting, just as he did Evelyn’s, and she hated herself for the warmth that started there and flowed throughout her body.

“It’s been delightful,” he told his hosts. “I hope I can reciprocate by taking you out to dinner. All of you,” he corrected turning to Meara and Lisa.

Evelyn nodded, as did Kelly.

“I—I’ll have to see,” Meara hesitated.

“I’ll call,” Chris promised. “May I walk you both to the house?”

“It’s just next door,” Meara said, wanting desperately to get away from his spell.

“Then it’s no trouble.” He didn’t give her a chance to say more, but took her arm, politely but firmly. He waited until Meara unlocked the door, then turned away. When Meara got inside, she started to close the blinds and saw him standing in front, his eyes on the house. When he saw Meara in the window, he gave her a rueful grin before turning away.

“I liked him,” Lisa said behind her.

Had she seen him standing there? She doubted it. She hoped not.

“Did you know him well?” Lisa probed again.

“I barely knew him at all…and it was years ago,” Meara said honestly. She
hadn’t
known him at all. She only thought she had.

“Well I liked him a lot. He reminded me a little of Daddy.” It was the highest compliment Lisa could give.

Meara felt queasy. Of course, Lisa liked him. Charm was his stock and trade.

Damn his soul, it was working again. Even knowing everything she did, it was working again.

Chris stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He hoped like hell Meara didn’t realize how difficult it had been to take his hand from her elbow.

Or how difficult it was to take his hands from her at all.

He was so damned afraid she would run like hell if he hadn’t.

But he’d had twenty-one years of learning to control his emotions, of regretting the two weeks when he had not. He would not make that mistake again. He couldn’t bear hurting her again.

Chris walked past his rented house. He didn’t go in. It was empty. Empty and lonely. His suit coat over his shoulder, he continued to walk to the dunes, down to the ocean. Since the evening when he’d confronted her on the beach, he had not come here again at night. He hadn’t wanted to.

It had not been far from here, the first time he had made love to Meara. He felt a smile come to his lips as he remembered how sweet it had been, how sweet and desperate and all-consuming. He had never thought of the sexual act as sweet before that time. She had taught him. The incredible sweetness of honey mixed with tempestuous passion. Nothing had been so fine before, or since, nothing so exquisitely painful. Then she had tried so hard not to ask anything of him, but in not doing so, she had asked much more.

He had been unable to give it to her, to give anything to her.

Except Lisa.

He sat on one of the rocks that now constituted a sea wall, protection of the dunes against the encroaching sea. So much was the same that he almost expected Meara to appear, just as she had the other dark night, the night he had returned from contacting the U-boat. It all seemed so long ago, so unlikely. A bad play with a melodramatic ending.

Since he had been here, he had read several short histories of the island, seeking to find confirmation that it had all indeed happened. There were references to a rumor that the Jekyll Island Club had been closed by order of the government, even supposition that General George Patton himself had arrived to make sure the club was closed for fear of German raids. Another account, however, described the rumors as nonsense. The club merely closed because of the war, the shortages.

Americans. He was one now. Of sorts. Unless he was discovered, his real identity revealed. What would he be then? A man without a country. He had betrayed Germany, despite the reasons or intentions behind it. He had spied on America.

He remembered when Meara had once asked him whether he had a home. What had he answered then? He didn’t remember exactly, but he knew then as he did now that he belonged nowhere, that he never had. Seattle had been merely a stopping place, a temporary shelter from the storm. It had never been home. Home was where people you loved were.

Home had been here, for two weeks, two bright weeks one spring. Meara’s island of dreams. It had been his, too.

He closed his eyes. Perhaps when he opened them, she would be here as she once had been, walking toward him with those bright eyes, that wistful smile.

But when he opened them, he was still alone. He shivered, but not with cold. The surf seemed to mock his thoughts. Alone. Alone. Alone…

Meara made herself a cup of hot chocolate and went out on the porch. She had tried to sleep, but couldn’t. She stared out at the dunes beyond.

He was out there. She knew it.

He was out there waiting.

Dear Heaven, how did she know that?

A short walk, and his arms would enfold her, comfort her, love her. She knew that too.

One of her nails dug into the palm of her hand, and she felt the warm trickle of blood.

She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Not again. Never again would she expose herself and her daughter to the kind of pain she had once experienced. Never again.

Sanders, she screamed silently. You’ve always been there. Why aren’t you here now?

The silence was deafening. She had to depend on herself. She had to make herself stronger than Michael, than the call that reached out to her. Chameleon, she told herself again. A darting, elusive, cunning creature. Sometimes even beautiful when its colors caught the sun, but then the colors turned drab as they melded into those of the earth. Changing. Always changing, the brilliance swift and temporary and treacherous.

With a groan that rose from deep in her soul, she turned back toward her room, feet dragging. It would be a long night. A very, very long, lonely night.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“H
OW DO
I
LOOK
?”

Lisa’s voice was clear and happy as she swept into the den where Meara was working, trying to work, on an article.

Meara looked up at her daughter and breath caught in her throat. Lisa was wearing a cocktail dress, a dark blue that made her eyes darker, almost like Michael’s. There were two thin straps holding up the bodice, and a flared skirt that swung gracefully around Lisa’s long, lovely legs.

She looked young and fresh and innocent. So innocent that Meara thought her heart would break. How could she allow Lisa to go out this night with Kurt Weimer? How could she allow evil to touch her?

Meara had asked Michael that earlier in a panicked phone call.

Patiently, Michael—Chris—had reviewed her options. She could tie her daughter up, lock her in a room, plead with her to break the date, tell her daughter everything, or…trust him. Nothing, he assured her, would happen to Lisa. He had all the bases covered. All of them. Lisa would never be out of sight of the detectives he had hired.

Two additional men had joined the original couple. One had even hired on to help with the banquet tonight. Another had purchased one of the coveted invitations to the dinner and bribed the staff to place his name card next to Weimer’s. They were the best, Michael said. The very best.

A bugging device had been planted in Weimer’s cottage, and technicians were listening in a truck sent to repair a water leak in an adjoining cottage. Michael did not explain the opportune leak.

But still, Meara could barely tolerate the thought of the man with Lisa, even under a hundred watchful eyes.

She had tried to write all afternoon: a proposal to a history publication that had previously published several of her articles. She had established a solid reputation in that field, and had even sold an article on Georgia’s coastal islands to
National Geographic.
That had been her prize piece. But now the words wouldn’t come, nor the thoughts organize in any logical way. All she had been able to do was wonder whether she was wrong in keeping the past secret, whether she was endangering her daughter by protecting herself. If only she thought the knowledge wouldn’t destroy her daughter, destroy her faith and pride and love in both Sanders and herself.