Renegade Player (12 page)

Another crop of freckles would be all she had to show for the weekend, she supposed, unlike Dotty, who had taken a step irrevocably into her future.

Kiel was busy with the mooring buoy and Willy supposed she should at least offer to help, but she was half-hypnotized by the sun and the motion, in a sweet, drowsy state when she simply could not compel her limbs to obey her orders.

“You’re incredible.”

She hadn’t even heard his cat-footed approach and now she rolled over on her back and smiled up at him, still caught up in the thrall of her daydreams. “What do you mean?”

“Most women would be lying on a pad annointing themselves with oil and worrying about strap marks and you sprawl here on the deck in rolled-up jeans with your shirt sleeves uneven, collecting half a hundred or so more sunspots without a worry in the world. Where’s your vanity, woman?”

She sat up and blinked away a momentary lightheadedness, brought on by sleeping in the sun. “That’s a low blow ... I think.”

He ruffled her hair playfully and held out a hand, and when she allowed him to pull her to her feet, he caught her lightly against him for just a moment.

Unexpectedly flustered, she hurried into speech. “You know, I just might not have them all year around, now I’ve left Florida. My freckles, I mean. I’m not sure I’d recognize me all one color.”

His grin started in his eyes and spread slowly, crinkling his lean cheeks and the browned skin around his eyes. “You’re a nice lady, did you know that, Willy Silverthorne? But you have a way of changing those spots so that a man doesn’t quite know what kind of cat he’s got hold of.”

She looked up at him doubtfully. “I don’t think that sounds much like a compliment, but just in case it is, thanks.”

Sliding his hands up to her shoulders so as to bring her closer to him, Kiel lowered his face to hers, resting his forehead against her own for just a minute before turning his face so that their lips came together. It was a light kiss—no pressure, no demands—and yet it was that very quality of tentative teasing, the playful feel of those firm-soft lips against her own that disarmed her so completely that it was all she could do not to throw her arms around him and force him to admit that whatever it was between them was more than mere physical attraction.

The tension built until it was a palpable thing, and then he lifted his face and gazed down at her search-ingly, and she was once more thoroughly confused by what she read in his eyes.

“Kiel?” she whispered tentatively.

“Time to go.” He turned her in the direction of the cockpit, and as she edged along beside the pilothouse, he remained to do something with the bowline and the moment was lost.

The tender was secured, both ice chests were loaded in the car, and Dotty had taken her books and her happy memories and headed home to Wanchese. Kiel and Willy were cutting across the parking lot to the Porsche when someone hailed them.

“Kiel! Kielly, where have you been?”

They both halted abruptly as a tiny doll-like creature detached herself from the side of the silver-gray vehicle and skipped across the marled lot to throw her arms around Kiel’s neck. At least, she reached up toward his neck, but even with three-inch heels, she was only able to reach the collar of his shirt and she grabbed it and hung on while she chided him in a clear, ringing drawl that could be heard all over the marina.

“Oh, Kielly, darlin’, I thought you’d never get back! I’ve been waitin’ here for ever so long, and ...”

The voice went on and on and Willy stood back and watched in exasperated amusement. Kielly, darlin’, didn’t seem to be too happy about seeing her, whoever she was, for he was busy trying to disengage himself, in spite of the fact that the girl was a pint-sized knockout, with magnolia skin, a waving mop of blue-black hair and eyes the color of a blue-enameled Easter egg Willy had had as a child.

“Melanie, what on earth are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay put until you heard from me,” Kiel sighed.

“But, Kielly, I wasn’t having any fun at all, and you didn’t call or write and Atlanta is just so hot in the summertime, and— Well, I thought I’d just come on along and help you out. Aren’t you glad to see me?” That last was added on with a delectable pout and Willy made some noise in spite of herself, for they both looked around at the same time.

“Who’s this?” the girl sniffed.

“Melanie, this is Wilhelmina Silverthorne. Willy, Melanie Fredericks.”

The backseat of the 928S wasn’t made for legs as long as Willy’s and she bit back her impatience as she watched five feet, nothing curl up in the front seat and anoint Kiel with a look that was pure syrup. Her own look was less than sweet as she tried to keep her chin from bumping against her knees.

Over the purr of the powerful 4664-cc engine she could hear Melanie’s plaintive little-girl voice telling Kiel how she had prevailed on her father to fly her to Manteo. “And then I had to hire a man to drive me when I couldn’t find you. Your secretary said she thought you might be sailing this weekend and so I came to see if the Tern was here and I’ve been waiting ever since.”

“Any reason you decided to come, other than the fact that you weren’t having any fun and Atlanta was hot?” Kiel asked dryly as he turned off Highway 12 near South Nags Head.

“I missed you,” she said coyly, and Willy had a ringside view of fanning lashes that were long and thick enough to create a draft. Of course, her own were equally long and thick; only, when they were blond, it didn’t seem to count.

In the rearview mirror, Kiel’s eyes caught Willy’s for a brief moment, but when he spoke, it was to the girl beside him. “You could have called. Where are you staying?”

“Why, with you, darlin’,” came the immediate rejoinder.

“I’m afraid that won’t be very practical.”

“But, darlin’, when have I ever been practical?” She cast a glance over her shoulder to where Willy sat, contorted around her flight bag and the two ice chests and said disarmingly, “Isn’t that just like a man? They want a woman to be all soft and feminine and helpless, and then, all of a sudden, when it suits them, she has to be practical as well.” Then, with a surprisingly calculating look in her limpid eyes, “Where do we drop you, Miss . . . oh, dear, I’m afraid I never was very good with names.”

“We don’t drop Miss Silverthorne anywhere, Melanie. She was my guest aboard the Good Tern this weekend and she lives next door to my own place. Now, where do we drop
you
?” The iron in his voice was unmistakable and evidently it even managed to get through that thick mop of blue-black waves.

“Well, you don’t have to bite my head off, Kiel Faulkner. How was I to know Miss Silverthing was a special friend of yours? She doesn’t look like your usual type, and anyway, I thought you were supposed to be busy finding out all about this—”

“We’ll talk later, Melanie,” Kiel interrupted curtly. “Now, if you don’t have a place to stay lined up, you’d better come in with me and we’ll do some calling around.”

It was on the tip of Willy’s tongue to offer a couch, but somehow, she didn’t think Miss Georgia Peach would appreciate her humble lodgings.

They reached Wimble Court in hot, uncomfortable silence and Willy remained a captive while Kiel wrenched himself out from under the wheel and slammed the door. He strode around the low, sleek hood and jerked open the door, staring grimly off into space as Melanie shimmied her pink-clad body out onto the pavement beside him. One of her plump little alabaster arms worked its way up his chest and her fingers teased his sideburn. “Don’t be cross with me, Kielly, darlin’ . . . it’s been such a tiresome day and I had to wait for hours in that smelly ol’ place while you were out there having a good time without me.” Impatiently, Kiel moved her aside and folded back the seat to allow Willy to get out. She would have ignored his hand if it had been at all possible, but she needed help in levering herself out of the confined space, and when she emerged, slightly off balance, she found herself too close for comfort, especially as every move they made was being closely observed by a pair of enameled blue eyes.

“Thanks. It’s been fun,” Willy said coolly. “I know Dotty enjoyed it, too, in case she got off in too big a hurry to tell you.”

“Oh, then you two weren’t alone?” Melanie put in brightly.

Willy forestalled whatever it was that Kiel opened his mouth to say by telling the younger girl that there had been three of them and they met others at Hatteras by prearrangement. She could almost see the feathers settling nicely back in place again when Kiel, with malice aforethought, said softly, “But it was nice of you to see that I didn’t get lonely while Dotty was studying, and the night she spent aboard the
Eldorado
. ”

God, what a silly, childish bunch of idiots! All this innuendo and jealousy, as if there were anything between Kiel and herself to threaten someone like Melanie. Her attachment must be secure and of long standing to give her the brassbound gall to turn up on his doorstep with the ingenuous little statement that “It was hot in Atlanta?”

Willy turned and stalked away, and when she reached the foot of her stairway, Kiel stopped her with the reminder that her car was in his garage, and then there was that bit to rectify and explain to a newly suspicious Melanie. By the time she got upstairs to her own apartment, she was thoroughly put out. She had closed the place up against a possible rain and it was stuffy, and Melanie, with her pink and white prettiness and her possessive attitude toward Kiel, irritated her; besides, she was hungry!

Having dumped her flight bag unceremoniously on the bed, she was prodding the uninspired contents of her refrigerator when the phone rang. Thinking it was Kiel, with another chapter and verse about his little friend, she let it ring, but then she decided if she didn’t answer it, he’d only come over and barge in on her.

It was Matt Rumark. He wanted to know if she and Dotty had had a good weekend and how long they had been back and would she be interested in going to a beach party.

With an excuse already on the tip of her tongue, she heard herself agreeing. Feeling oddly restless and out of sorts, she decided a big, noisy, brash party was exactly what she needed to wipe away the taste of the weekend and its aftermath, and what’s more, she decided to have a whale of a good time! Let those two untangle their own affairs; her own feelings were turbulent enough without worrying about what went on between Kiel and Little Miss Cotton Candy!

There had been very few people in Willy’s life who had had an immediate adverse effect on her. Her father’s third and present wife had been one, and Randy’s secretary, Claudia Dunn, had been another. Not that there had ever been more than a few words exchanged between the two of them, for Claudia had had her heart set on being more than a secretary to the head of CCE; and when he had begun to show more than a passing interest in a freckled bean pole who, as often as not, was barefoot, bare-faced and dressed with about as much style as your average scarecrow, it had been too much for someone of Claudia’s fastidious nature. She had indicated her dislike of Willy by freezingly contemptuous looks whenever the two of them had come in contact at work, and it had amused as well as irritated Willy to see a woman who dressed as if she were on her way to a fashion show and even in the most melting weather looked bandbox fresh at the end of the day.

So now she could add someone else to her list of least-favorite people. Melanie Fredericks. And there wasn’t a single logical reason for that instinctive antipathy except for one she found unacceptable.

Jealousy was a demeaning emotion and she turned her mind determinedly to the evening ahead of her as she fastened on a pair of tortoiseshell ear hoops. She selected a dress she knew was a favorite of Matt’s, a red and gold cotton print with an elasticized band under the bust and a low, elasticized scoop neckline that made the most of her long neck and nicely sloped shoulders, and she focused her attention on getting herself into a party mood.

When she heard Matt’s tap on her screened door, she sang out, “Come on in. Be ready in a minute,” and located her straw sandals and matching bag, noticing impatiently that the clasp would not stay closed.

She looked at her neckline again and sighed, tugging it to cover the half-bra she wore. A little cleavage never hurt anyone and she was certainly used to running around in a lot less than this, on the beach, at least, but lately she had been growing more and more self-conscious about her body.

Just then the door to her bedroom was pushed open from its half-closed position and there, staring at her from the shadowy hallway, was the man who was responsible for that self-consciousness.

“I thought you were Matt.”

“I could have been any tramp off the highway, for all you knew,” Kiel said sternly. “Willy, you’ve got to wise up. I don’t like to think of you here by yourself with the place wide open like this.”

“Then don’t. I’m no concern of yours,” she retorted. “Dammit, we’re friends, but even if we were strangers. I’d— Here, let me do that.” He had crossed the floor with impatient strides and now he took the straw bag she had been fumbling with into his own hands. “It’s worn out,” he said curtly after half a minute. “Buy yourself a new one,” and he tossed it on her bed.

Willy straightened to her full five feet, eight, angry at him for barging in on her in this high-handed way and angry at herself for allowing him to affect her. “Don’t tell me what to do, Kiel Faulkner! And furthermore, get out of my bedroom! Get out of my house, in fact!” “I’llget out when I’m damned good and ready and not before!”

“What did you come up here for, anyway?” she demanded crossly, her eyes riveted to the pulse that hammered just above the pelt of body hair that showed above his open shirt.

“I came to apologize!” he barked. And then, as his eyes crinkled in sardonic amusement, “I came to apologize, Willy. Melanie can be pretty tactless sometimes and she has the manners of a delinquent brat, and so before you’re subjected to any more of her thoughtlessness, I wanted to explain a few things about our relationship.”