Summer on the Cape Page 3

  It wasn’t, of course, the first time. There had been men in Allie’s life before and a couple of them had been fairly serious, for a while at least. She smiled as she recalled the first one, a wild and passionate young art student who shared a Soho loft with two other young artists and who swore he would be the greatest since Van Gogh. She was seventeen and he was nineteen and he introduced her to sex. It had not been a bad experience—as it so easily might have been—but then he went to Paris and she never heard from him again. Just as well, she thought.

  And two years ago, there had been William H. Morrison III. She had come to think of him as the Narrow Escape. He should have been perfect, with his blond good looks and his brand-new partnership in his dad’s law firm—Morrison, McKenney and White—and his ever-so-correct upbringing in that ever-so-correct town up in Westchester County. Billy was of course too perfect. He kept her checkbook balanced, and he always insisted that the dishes be washed immediately after they’d had dinner at her apartment and he never forgot to check whether she’d been taking her birth control pills. When he decided that there would be no reason for her to continue “this painting stuff” once they were married—after all, his income was plenty for both of them—Allie knew it was over. He’d been a gently efficient lover, but his lovemaking had a kind of cool propriety to it that left Allie wondering if she could live such a quietly modulated life, devoid of any real passion.

  Fortunately, she had realized in time that, although she’d thought they were in love, Billy had just been trying to round off his résumé, looking to add the requisite wife and two point three children necessary to the career of an up-and-coming young attorney. She had cried a few tears after the break-up but she knew that marriage with William Morrison would have been a disaster, and in only a few weeks, she was glad she’d maintained her unattached status.

  She glanced covertly at Zach. What a pity, she thought, that this man was giving off such angry vibes. She had never responded so immediately to any man; there was a kind of energy that came from him that, in other circumstances, would have been irresistible. But his manner was absolutely intolerable, so she’d be glad to see the last of him. She turned away and, in order to avoid her driver altogether, she chose to examine the scenery to her right, through the passenger window. She hoped the drive wouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

  The truck left the wooded road that ran from the airport and turned out onto the highway, heading south. Way off to the right, in the far distance, above the scrubby terrain of sere, low-lying trees and brush, rising out of the sandy, grayish soil, she spotted a very tall, very skinny tower that rose into the sky, high above the hazy horizon. Curious, she decided to try a bit of “safe” conversation.

  “I see some sort of tall tower out there. Way out in the distance. Is it a lighthouse?”

  Before he answered, Allie saw his lips compress and the muscles of his neck tense, as though the question angered him. He seemed to concentrate on the road ahead with special attention, keeping his eyes averted from her.

  “That’s the Pilgrim’s Monument,” he said at last. “I’d have thought you’d already have all that information, about the first English to arrive here.” His response puzzled her and she could make no sense of his words, but the hostility of his tone was unmistakable.

  She hoped all the natives weren’t as touchy as this man was.

  “I guess I wasn’t very good at early American history.” She made no effort to conceal the sarcasm. “What I remember about the Pilgrims is that they arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 and landed at Plymouth Rock. So why do they have a monument here on the Cape?”

  “Actually,” he snapped at her, “you haven’t got it quite right. The Mayflower’s first stop was in fact up here at the tip of the Cape. The Pilgrims landed here and explored all around this area, looking for fresh water.” Zach’s hand gestured at the sandy stretches past which they were driving. “That pond over there”—he pointed to his left at a small body of water—“that pond is called Pilgrim Lake. The Native Americans finally convinced them to cross the bay, where conditions for settlement were more favorable farther up the Massachusetts coast. Of course,” he said, his impatient manner suggesting she was much like a willfully stupid child, “it wasn’t called Massachusetts then.”

  “Oh, really?”

  She’d had just about enough of this! He may be gorgeous, she was thinking, but he can’t get away with insulting me. She was about to call him on it, when, abruptly, he started to laugh.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. The furrows in his face deepened as he smiled broadly. “That was really uncalled for.” Allie was taken aback by his sudden apology. “It’s just that I thought you must be putting me on.” His tone had an edge of cynicism in it. “I figured if you’re working on this scheme of Adam’s, you must already know plenty about the history of this area. But maybe I misunderstood the nature of your relationship with him. Please, just forget what I said.”

  He turned his head toward her again, letting his glance run quickly, effectively, over her trim figure, her casual clothes, her casual manner. Then, more slowly, though keeping one eye on the road, he looked at her feet, bare in her tennis shoes, and then, still slowly, he let his eyes wander all the way up her body, taking in her whole form, bit by bit, and pausing, for just an extra moment, at the open neckline of her dark blue shirt.

  Then he turned fully back to the road ahead of him. “Just what kind of work are you doing for Adam?” His meaning was unmistakable.

  “I think you’d better get this straight, Mr. Eliot.” Now she was really angry. “Adam Talmadge is my agent. I don’t work for him. He represents me. And I don’t think your picking me up at the airport entitles you to any explanations!”

  He turned and his eyes probed hers intently for a moment, his face hard and angry. Finally, he looked away from her, his jaw set firmly. “You’re right,” he said at last, staring at the road. He drove silently for several minutes until he turned left off the highway, continuing along a densely wooded road, the heavy truck whishing past the sun-filtering trees, the closeness of his body intensified by the shadows of the woods around them.

  At last, when he spoke, his tone was grim. “You’re right,” he repeated. “I was way out of line and you have my apology.” Apparently, that was all he was going to say. He compressed his lips, and the muscle in his jaw was working.

  She turned away, determined that she, too, would remain silent. She was appalled by the nerve of the man, and his apology was hardly enough to mollify her. She fixed her gaze out the side window and tried to focus her attention on the lovely old houses, half concealed by the trees, as they drove past.

  In a few minutes, the road opened up onto the beachfront and from there on, ran along parallel to the shore. On the ocean side, tall sand dunes dropped away to the beach far below, still empty so early in the season. The waves rolled in over the fringes of seaweed and broken shells that lined the water’s edge and, despite her preoccupation with Zach, Allie found herself responding to the beauty of the seashore and the ocean.

  At last they reached a large two-story house, built high on a promontory reaching out over the beach. In the late afternoon sun, the cedar shingles, weathered silver and gray, were glowing in the beautiful light. Zach turned the truck in at the driveway and pulled to a stop behind a dark gray Cherokee that was parked there.

  “This is it,” he said shortly. He left the motor running while he opened the door and swung his long legs out. Allie was about to get out when she realized that he was coming around the front of the truck in order to hold the door for her. After his incredible rudeness only a few minutes earlier, she was not about to accept such old-fashioned courtesy. Before he could reach her, she had the door opened and had climbed down from the truck.

  She moved past him quickly and went right to the house, but she was brought up short when she got there. The door was locked. Of course! She almost stamped her foot in frustration, remaining impatiently where she
was, waiting for Zach, but not deigning to look back at him. She could hear her things being lifted from the truck and then he was there next to her, setting her boxes down on the flagstones. He took a key from his pocket, fitted it into the lock and opened the door, pushing it inward to the entryway of the house. Then he handed the key to her. “Mr. Talmadge said to have the car ready for you, too,” he added, gesturing toward the Cherokee, “so I gassed it up this morning and checked it out. She’s running just fine. The key’s in the ignition.” Quickly, while she stepped across the threshold and stood inside the entryway, he put all her boxes inside. “We don’t lock things up much around here,” he said, “but I know how you city people are. If you feel uncomfortable, being alone and all, you might want to lock the place up at night.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be all right.” Involuntarily, her gaze was drawn to Zach’s deep blue eyes as he stood close to her, and she could feel a challenge in the air, but whether it came from him or from herself, she couldn’t tell. He held her eyes for a moment with his, and then, abruptly, without saying good-bye, he turned and strode back to the truck. In a moment, he had climbed in and was gone.

  She looked after the green truck as it disappeared down the road. “My God,” she said aloud. “He acts as though I’d come here just to do him some personal harm.” She closed the door and felt a disturbing shiver of Zach’s sensual impact run through her body. She stood there for a moment with her hand on the door handle. “But he sure is one hell of a man.”

  * * *

  Zach got as far as the highway before he pulled the truck over to the side of the road and stopped. The full impact of Allie Randall was hitting him like a bomb with a delayed-action detonator, and he needed to catch his breath before he became a menace on the road.

  He’d known he’d been sledgehammered the moment she stepped off that plane. In that instant, the sunlight on the field had blazed as though some cosmic electrician had turned up the intensity, just long enough to catch his attention, and the breeze that had lifted her hair seemed to have made her raise her arm just so he could see that lovely young form that had just made a graceful and totally unexpected entry into his life.

  Zach was unprepared for the feelings that had exploded so unexpectedly in him. For all these years, his life had been lived in an emotional limbo, safe from intrusions, and now, with no warning, he’d been blindsided, slammed hard against the ground.

  He dropped his head forward, resting his forehead on his hands where they grasped the top of the steering wheel. So many years. Eight years. Eight awful years. Practically to the day. He would not have believed any woman could reach him like this.

  Maybe, if he hadn’t been thinking about Adam before she got off the plane, maybe if he hadn’t been making ugly assumptions about her even before she arrived, maybe then he’d have felt the full force of her effect on him right at the beginning instead of its going off later, like this, like a time bomb. As it was, she seemed to have disabled his powers of rational thought. He didn’t know the woman at all, he thought, angry at his stupidity, and he’d managed to be incredibly rude to her before he’d even gotten her to the house.

  Before she arrived, he’d been prepared to be hostile to Allie Randall. But he’d been completely thrown by the look of her, that slim, lithe figure, so graceful, so casually graceful. And the scent of her hair—he’d caught the barest breath of it as he helped her into the truck—that marvelous hair, and those fine, sensitive eyes, so beautiful, with lovely dark rims around the glowing irises, turning greenish when she got mad. And no wonder she’d gotten mad. He’d acted like a jerk! He’d deserved more than a tongue-lashing and the lightning that had flashed from those extraordinary eyes.

  But the thought of any connection between her and Adam Talmadge must have made his mind slip a gear. He’d acted like a jealous adolescent, assuming the worst about her, insulting her. Pretty damned stupid! She’d put him in his place, and he’d deserved it.

  But what was her connection to Adam? Maybe she really was one of Adam’s clients. And if she was, she must be good. Adam Talmadge represented only the best. And she was obviously here to work. The house had a first-rate studio in it, and that load of painting supplies and easels was not just window dressing. Maybe she didn’t even know what Adam was up to. It was possible.

  And after all, what Adam was trying to do wasn’t illegal. Far from it, it was entirely legal and it was in the best tradition of good old American “progress.”

  But Zach had his reasons, very personal reasons, why he wasn’t going to allow Adam to go ahead with his project. Zach’s fists gripped the steering wheel and he pressed his forehead hard against his hands, the muscles of his jaw clenched tightly.

  With a bright, graceful force of its own, the image of Allie appeared in his mind, and suddenly, like warfare inside him, her sweet-scented, young loveliness combined with the cruel pain that broke his heart, over and over again. Eight years, and nothing, nothing had been like that burst of sunlight on the airfield today, and the lift of the light wind. Zach felt his soul would crack.

  * * *

  At last, as the sun dropped beyond the bay, Zach straightened up. He turned on his headlights and pulled out onto the highway. They’d be waiting for him down at the dock and he had work to do. The matter of Allie Randall and his questions about what she was really doing here would have to be put on hold for a while. He drove until he came to the little town and then he turned onto the road that led to the harbor.

  Chapter Three

  With her hand still on the door handle, Allie stood in the entryway for several moments, unable, or unwilling, to move. Then, as though clearing her head, she said, “Well, this isn’t getting me anywhere.” She turned and prepared to take stock of this place that would be her home for the summer. She slipped off her jacket and dropped it carelessly onto a ladder-back chair that stood along one wall of the entryway, next to an antique pine blanket chest.

  She took a deep breath and said aloud, “Let’s see what sort of place Adam has here.”

  In the living room, broad sliding doors opened onto a deck that reached toward the ocean, and the reflected light allowed a late-afternoon glow to fill the house. She walked through the rooms and discovered a kind of home that was completely new to her city-bred experience. Light-filled and spacious, it seemed to be made of the very air and scent of ocean and beach and the long, feathery grasses that grew along the tops of the tall dunes.

  And it was no surprise to her that the rooms were beautifully furnished.

  Adam never had anything but the best.

  Each piece of furniture was a fine antique. The floors were perfectly pegged oak, and fabrics and colors had been thoughtfully selected. As she walked from room to room, Allie ran a loving hand over the fine wood surfaces, sensing the care that had been given them. This was the kind of home she’d dreamed of when she was little.

  What surprised her most was the difference between this “cottage” and the elegant and elaborate settings in which she was accustomed to seeing Adam. This place was delightfully simple and thoroughly comfortable. There was nothing fragile about the antique pieces. Blanket chests and rocking chairs and high-topped desks had about them the solid look of having been well used by many generations, and of being ready for many more generations to come. There were old-fashioned hooked rugs on the floors, and upstairs, in the bedroom, there was a big bed with an intricately hand-carved old headboard and footboard of beautiful aged cherry wood. On the bed, there was a fine old quilt, made of hundreds of scraps of fabric, stitched lovingly together by some long-ago Yankee grandmother, during the cold winter nights, by candlelight, here in this very house—

  Hey, take it easy. The old imagination is beginning to work overtime. Adam probably picked up the quilt at an antique auction in Manhattan.

  At the end of the upstairs hallway, beyond the master bedroom, a door opened onto a stairway that went down into a separate wing on the north side of the house. Allie suspected that th
is room had once been an attached barn. It was two stories high and had been fitted out as an artist’s studio. A big skylight had been placed into the original roof, and because the room faced north, it was ideal for a painter. It took Allie’s breath away. Adam had said only, “Don’t worry. You’ll have some space where you can paint up there.” She hadn’t realized that when Adam said “some space,” what he meant was that she would have an artist’s dream studio.

  Many years of disciplined work took precedence over any fatigue she felt, and she brought all her painting materials and supplies into the studio and got them out of the boxes. When morning came, she would be ready to work.

  Maria would have laughed if she had seen Allie unpacking her boxes. Although unconcerned for her clothes—she always tossed them about any old way—she was fastidious about her painting materials. With careful attention, she laid out her pencils and charcoals and pastels, sorting them into working groups. Tubes of oils and watercolors and jars of acrylics were arranged in separate rows. Brushes were minutely examined for wear. Places were found for pads and wooden carrying boxes to take out on field trips, and she made a stack of men’s shirts, big and baggy and ragged, to be used as smocks.

  It was almost nine o’clock before she realized she hadn’t eaten since the quick cup of coffee and two Oreos she had hastily swallowed before she’d left her apartment almost eight hours ago. She took one last look at the marvelous studio, turned out the light, and closed the door behind her.

  She went back through the house to the kitchen at the other end, hoping to find some peanut butter and maybe a jar of instant coffee. To her surprise, the bright, modern kitchen had been completely stocked with everything she would need to keep herself comfortably fed for a long time. Feeling like Goldilocks as she searched through the cabinets, Allie was just a bit uneasy, prying in someone else’s home.