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Two Hearts, Slightly Used
Dixie Browning
Brace Ridgeway: Okay, I was dumped. No big deal. I'm not too upset at being single again, but the reason I got jilted was pretty embarrassing. So I escaped to North Carolina's Outer Banks to be alone, and what do I get? A woman who wants to know my business.Frances Jones: What's a gal to do when she gets a scrumptious-looking, sexy man for company, and he's not much of a talker? I know he's been through something, but I also know that underneath that hard, muscled chest I can't keep my eyes off is a soft heart I want to make mine forever!



Two Hearts, Slightly Used
Dixie Browning


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Contents
One (#uc5a9814c-7222-56b2-b7c2-e1bc788a095a)
Two (#u3010e4d2-dcaa-57d5-b70c-0a54a8b80c70)
Three (#uca8a78f5-0f21-58d1-ae38-926f040dda98)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
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Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

One
It might as well be the end of the world. There wasn’t a ferry slip, much less a bridge. Frances Smith Jones, surrounded by the bulk of her worldly possessions, stood at the edge of the weathered pier and stared across at the dusky smudge on the horizon that was Coronoke Island, waiting for the boy from the marina to bring around a boat.
Only a few days ago, burning her bridges behind her had seemed like a terrific idea. Now she was beginning to wonder if she hadn’t made one more king-size mistake.
Massaging the pucker between her eyebrows, she pushed back the headache that had been threatening all day, then discreetly rubbed her sore bottom. One thing was certain: if she had to start over again—and she did—it would most definitely not be as a long-haul truck driver!
“I can tote part of that stuff over for you, ma’am, but you’ll have to leave the rest here. All I got in the water right now is the thirteen-footer, and she don’t have a lot of freeboard. Choppy as it is today, we’d take on too much water.”
His name was Jerry. She had caught him just as he was locking the tiny marina office for the day and asked him where the bridge to Coronoke was located. “Bridge to Coronoke? Ma’am, that thing washed out back when I was in sixth grade. There was talk of rebuilding it for a while, but the state wouldn’t spend the money, and the cottagers over there sorta liked the privacy. I can run you over, but you’ll have to wait till tomorrow evening for the rest of your stuff, unless you want to take one of Maudie’s boats and haul ‘em yourself. I got a date tonight and school tomorrow.” He grinned self-consciously, big white teeth gleaming in a perennially tanned face.
Frances put his age at about seventeen, though he looked younger. She herself was thirty-nine, and at the moment she felt every single minute of it.
Indicating her smallest suitcase, the groceries she’d bought in the village and her laptop computer—things she could not do without—she locked the rest in the trunk of her car. She could get through the night on the bare essentials and worry about the rest tomorrow.
Dusk was falling rapidly, thanks in part to the heavy layer of clouds that had moved in late in the afternoon. She hadn’t counted on having to find her uncle’s cottage in the dark. According to him, there were five cottages and a sort of lodge on the island. No street numbers, no street lights, no streets.
“Ask Maudie,” he had told her. “You’ll find her at the Hunt.”
Well, first she had to find Maudie, and to do that she had to find something called a hunt. Or was it a hut? Probably the lodge he’d mentioned.
It had all seemed so simple when she’d handed in her resignation, met with the lawyer to sign over the house to the Joneses, called Uncle Seymore in Philadelphia to ask if he still had that cottage some-where down South and, if so, was it rented and, if not, could she please possibly borrow it for a few weeks, just until she decided what she was going to do with the rest of her life?
She had offered to pay rent and utilities, although it would’ve eaten into her cash reserve, but Uncle Seymore wouldn’t hear of it. “Bake me something tasty for Christmas,” he’d said, and she had promised, without the least notion of where she would be in a year’s time. High on a heady mixture of optimism, outrage and blind determination, she had managed to convince herself that, free at last, she was embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.
But somewhere between Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Coronoke, North Carolina—after two flat tires, numerous wrong turns, half a bottle of aspirin and a near miss from a driver who evidently suffered under the misassumption that the entire Indiana highway system constituted the Indianapolis Speedway—her taste for adventure had begun to dissipate.
And then she’d had to pick up that small-town weekly paper in a fast-food restaurant in Manteo, with the picture of a buck-toothed, hair-ribboned child and the too-cute headline of Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s Forty!
Who needed reminding?
Clutching her precious laptop computer as they roared across the rough expanse of open water, Frances wondered at what point her brain had begun to atrophy. The eldest of five, she’d always been considered the sensible member of the rowdy Smith brood. Sweet, docile Frances, practical to the core.
For docile, read doormat!
Apprehension grew as they neared the small, wooded island. The only sign of habitation was the pier, and that was deserted. Club Med, this was not!
She settled up the tab, hoping she wouldn’t need to call on Jerry’s services too often. “Where will I find someone named Maudie?” she asked, once she and her belongings had been set off onto the narrow pier. She was shivering with cold, her hair was dripping with salt spray and her poor derriere had been pounded flat on the unpadded aluminum seat.
“Utah. Gone to see her new granddaughter.”
“Utah! Oh, marvelous. Then perhaps you can tell me where to find the Seymore cottage. I think it’s called Blackbeard’s Retreat, or something like that.”
“Hole. Old Teach weren’t one to do much retreatin’, not even when Lieutenant Meynard come at him with a head-remover. Whole thing happened just a little ways down the sound, right abreast—”
Frances was in no mood for a blow-by-blow of some dead pirate’s Waterloo. “Well, whatever it’s called, where do I find it?”
“Sorry, ma’am. Some folks likes hearing about that kind of stuff, some don’t. You take that there path through the woods—” he pointed at an all-but-invisible thinning of the dense, shadowy forest “—and then hang a right. Cottages are all on the other side of the island. Blackbeard’s Hole’s the one on the end. Green striped storm blinds. Can’t miss it.” Mission accomplished, he jumped back into the boat and prepared to cast off.
Standing forlornly on the pier, surrounded by her assorted belongings, Frances was sorely tempted to toss it all into the boat and go back with him. She could spend the night at a motel on Hatteras. Things were bound to look better in the morning. They could hardly look worse.
“Jerry, do you think—” she began, just as he opened the throttle and flipped her a jaunty salute.
“See you later, ma’am! Gotta go pick up my date!”
“Oh, for pity’s sake! If that’s Southern hospitality, they can just—just stuff it!” she muttered as the roar of the outboard diminished in the distance.
The first indication that she was not alone came when she felt the vibration of heavy footsteps on the sturdy wooden pier.
“If you’re looking for the Keegans, they’re not here. If you’re looking for a motel, we don’t have any. If you’re looking for hospitality, Southern or otherwise, we’re fresh out of that, too. Sorry, lady. You got off at the wrong stop.”
Her first impression was of a tall man who could easily have carried another fifteen or twenty pounds on his rangy frame. A nondescript sweatshirt hung from a set of wide, square shoulders. Worn jeans loosely covered lean hips and long legs. His boots, the thick-soled, step-in variety, showed signs of long, hard wear. Even without the extra weight he needed, he was a big man, towering over her own five foot eight, which had recently gone from slender to downright skinny.
A matched pair of Jack Spratts, she thought, with a wild urge to giggle. Frances had never giggled in her life. At least, not since she’d left the third grade. “The Keegans? Would that, by any chance, include a Maudie?”
He was closer now. The light was at his back, but what she could see of his expression was definitely not encouraging. Ignoring her perfectly civil question, he said, “I told you, lady, this place is battened down for the winter. No phones, no power, no people. You want to try again after Memorial Day, you might get a better reception.”
It could hardly be worse. The thought echoed again in her aching head. The raw wind that had followed her all the way down the narrow strip of barrier islands had diminished somewhat with the setting of the sun, but the cold had long since penetrated her layers of spray-damp clothing. Her nose had probably turned blue to match the circles under her eyes. Nothing like making a good first impression.
“And how do you propose I leave?” she inquired sweetly. To anyone who knew her, such a reckless disregard for danger would be a sure tip-off of how near the end of her rope she was. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to direct me to the nearest bus stop?”
He didn’t know her, and obviously didn’t care to. His response was brief, rude and unhelpful. In the rapidly fading light, Frances couldn’t tell much about his face, except that it reminded her of the chunk of petrified wood her grandmother used to use as a doorstop.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I have no intention of doing any such thing,” she said, her attempt at firmness largely ruined by the chattering of her teeth. “If you’ll just point me in the right direction, I’ll find the place, myself.”
When he continued to stand there, arms crossed over his broad chest, she said, “It’s the Seymore cottage. It’s called Blackbeard’s Hole. It’s the one with the green-striped shutters!”
Exasperated beyond bearing, she reached down and began gathering up her assorted baggage. “Oh, forget it! I’ll just—”
“Storm blinds.”
“What? Oh, never mind, I’ll find it myself!” she snapped. Her head ached, she was cold, hungry, discouraged and bone tired after two and a half days of traveling. It had been a real bitch of a week.
A real bitch of a decade, actually, but she had made up her mind to leave the past behind her and look ahead to the next forty years. They were going to be terrific! She owed herself that much.
Gathering up her computer and her suitcase, Frances eyed the lumpy sacks of groceries, glanced at the sky and prayed for the rain to hold off until she had everything under cover. Her unwelcoming committee obviously had no intention of helping her.
So be it. Brushing past him, she set out up the sloping beach toward the narrow path Jerry had pointed out. If the cottages were on the other side of the island, why the dickens hadn’t he driven his blooming boat around there and parked it closer to her doorstep?
The owners liked their privacy, he’d said. Well, if she had any choice in the matter, they could keep their darned privacy! Not even a decent sidewalk! Her shoes were filled with sand before she’d gone a hundred feet, and there was no telling how much farther she still had to go.
“You really intend to go through with it, huh?”
At the sound of that gravelly voice right behind her, Frances almost walked into a tree. And that was another thing about sand she hated! A body could sneak up on you and you wouldn’t even hear him!
Trudging onward, she made up her mind to ignore him, but the temptation was too great. She stole a glance over her shoulder and then had the grace to feel ashamed when she saw that he was carrying the two largest of her six sacks of groceries. They were heavy, too. Five pounds of this, five pounds of that, not to mention all the canned goods—she’d had to start from scratch and stock up on everything.
He moved up beside her, crowding her between the dark, encroaching bushes. “How do you intend to get in?” he asked.
Frances tried to ignore the feeling of being trapped in the forest with a hungry predator. She refused to be intimidated. She’d come too far for that. “I’ll pick the lock, of course. Or if I can’t find my trusty lock picker, I’ll just toss a brick through a window.” A streak of reckless perversity that was totally out of character kept her from mentioning the key her uncle had mailed her.
“That’s what storm blinds are for.”
“Oh? Then it’ll have to be lock-picking. I always hate picking strange locks in the dark, but at least it’s neater than using explosives.”
Explosives? The closest she’d ever come to using explosives was when she’d microwaved her first egg. She was running on adrenaline, practically begging for trouble from a stranger who looked as if he’d invented trouble and still held the patent.
But anger served to keep her going, and she was afraid if she slowed down for so much as a minute, she might collapse like a punctured balloon.
“Look, I have a key from the owner, all right?” she cried, exasperated. “I’m not trespassing, so you can just knock off the watchdog routine!”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Might as well warn you, though, if you’re looking for a cozy place to crash—the generator tank probably needs filling, and without that, you won’t have lights, heat or running water. You might find a candle or two, but that’s about all.”
“Fine! Just give me the luxuries of life, and I’ll do without the necessities.” The only luxury she wanted at the moment was a bed and a roof over her head, and even the roof was optional as long as it didn’t rain. “I’ll figure it all out tomorrow.” Fumbling in her shoulder bag, she came up with the door key and prayed it was the right one. Knowing Uncle Seymore, it could just as easily be the key to his own basement. Poor Uncle Seymore wasn’t quite as sharp as he used to be.
It was the right key. Frances stepped inside and drew a deep breath of relief. Home at long last! And then she shivered. Home, at the moment, was cold as a tomb, damp as a well and smelled of mice and mildew. “I’ve seen cozier caves,” she muttered. “Do bats smell like mice?”
“I warned you.” He had come in right behind her, and for one crazy moment, she was glad of his nearness. Alone wasn’t quite so intimidating when there was someone there to share it.
“So you did. Did I remember to thank you? No? Then thank you so much for all your help and your warm welcome. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get the rest of my groceries under cover in case it rains tonight.”
“I think that’s pretty well guaranteed. Do you have a flashlight?”
“Of course I have a flashlight!” Digging in her purse, she came up with a small plastic model designed to locate car keys and keyholes. It illuminated a spot roughly the size of a nickel.
“Pretty. By the way, does your keeper know you’ve escaped?”
Frances could have wept—not so much at her own stupidity, but because he was there to gloat over it. Her good flashlight was back in Fort Wayne, along with her books, her mother’s good chesterfield, Aunt Becky’s marble-topped table, her AM-FM radio and all her garden implements. She’d been so blessed eager to escape with a clear conscience that she’d given her in-laws practically everything that could even faintly be considered marital property and stored the rest.
“Oh, yes. I left word at the asylum I’d be leaving. So thanks again for all your kind assistance,” she said with a saccharine smile. It was almost too dark to see inside the house, even with the front door standing wide open. She flicked on a light switch. Nothing happened.
“I warned you.” He was still holding both sacks of groceries, and she caught the gleam of a smile—a malicious smile, she told herself.
“Lucky for me, I’m not afraid of the dark.” She was afraid of three things—snakes, lightning and being made a fool of again. “Just put them anywhere—on that counter over there.”
“I may as well go get—”
“No, thank you. I need the exercise.” She held the door wide, hoping her grimace would pass for a smile in the dim light. In about five seconds she was going to cry, curse or kick something—hard! And she’d just as soon not have any witnesses.
* * *
Back at the Hunt several minutes later, Brace let himself inside and reached automatically for the light switch. His hand fell to his side, closed into a fist and then slid into his pocket. Dammit, his conscience was already giving him flak for all the lies he’d laid on her, and the crazy thing was, he didn’t even possess a conscience!
If she was still here tomorrow, he promised himself he would check out her generator. The tank wasn’t empty. They were kept topped off to prevent condensation.
Of course, he could simply flip the breakers and she wouldn’t need a generator. Unless the power cut out. Keegan had explained how salt buildup could cause transformers to arc, setting off pole fires, but there’d been enough rain lately to wash the salt off the lines.
On the other hand, there was no point in making things too easy for her. The more uncomfortable she was, the sooner she’d head back to wherever she’d come from. If there was one thing Brace didn’t need right now, it was company! Keegan had sworn the place was deserted by all but a few die-hard hunters in the wintertime.
Using his excellent night vision, he made his way to the back part of the restored central section of the lodge called Keegan’s Hunt. It had been built about a hundred years ago as a private hunting club and was on the way to falling into ruins when Rich Keegan, a few generations removed from the original builder, had come down to see if there was anything worth salvaging before the family’s ninety-nine-year lease ran out.
He’d found a squatter named Maudie—a divorcee with a grown daughter—married her and begun the task of rebuilding the elegant old hunt club and establishing a small but thriving air-commuter service between Billy Mitchell Airport on Hatteras and the mainland.
Not until Brace reached his own room, a corridorlike affair with a single oddly placed window, did he switch on a light, confident that it wouldn’t be seen from cottage row. Standing before a bow-fronted, bird’s-eye maple bureau with an ornate, gilt-framed mirror above it, he studied his own face dispassionately for the first time since he’d arrived a week and a half ago to island-sit for the Keegans while they went West.
It had been pretty dark. He figured she couldn’t have gotten a good look at him. Too bad. Stroking his jaw, he told himself that if she’d come a little earlier in the day, he could’ve scared the hell out of her without having to lay on all those lies. The way Brace figured it, in the long run the truth was a lot easier than lies. He’d never been a candidate for sainthood, but at least he drew the line somewhere.
Dispassionately he studied the image in the clouded and speckled old mirror. A few parts of the face that stared back were familiar. The deep-set gray eyes, narrowed from years of squinting against the sun. The hairline that was just beginning to migrate northward—at least, he imagined it was. As for the hair itself, it was still thick, of a nondescript shade of brown that turned paler on top in the summer sun. The gray hardly showed, not that he gave a good damn. He’d earned every last one of those gray hairs the hard way.
Earned the scars, too, he acknowledged ruefully as he studied the network of fine white lines that marred the left side of his face. His left cheekbone was slightly higher than the right one, but his new nose was a decided improvement over the old model. After a few too many walk-away crashes, not to mention more barroom brawls than he cared to recall, the old one had been barely functional. This new version—he fingered the straight slope—in addition to running a true northeast, southwest course, had the added advantage of working.
Switching off the light, Brace smiled bleakly into the darkness. He’d been accused of a lot of things in his long and colorful career—of carrying a chip on his shoulder the size of an old-growth redwood. Of trying to prove something to himself—God knew what. Of running on a mixture of jet fuel, adrenaline and testosterone.
Guilty on all three counts. It had taken a fiery, near-fatal crash in the top-secret ATX-4 he’d been testing to clip his wings permanently. Thirty-two months of intermittent hospitalization for reconstruction and rehabilitation gave a man a little too much time to think.
It was during that same period that he’d met Rich Keegan. Neither man had been into socializing, but they’d had flying in common. Finding themselves alone in the ward, while the others hung out in the rec room watching TV and playing video games, they’d gradually begun to talk. Behind the protective covering of a faceful of bandages, Brace had found himself opening up for the first time since he’d confided in a foster parent some thirty-odd years before that his real father was an Air Force general who was too busy saving the world to take care of him.
Hell, he’d never had a clue as to who his old man was. His mother, either. Once, though, he’d overheard a social worker telling a cop who’d busted him for some petty offense or another that he’d been left in a shopping cart in a department store rest room and was more trouble than any kid they’d ever had to deal with.
To this day Brace could recall how proud he’d been at the distinction. They’d called him John Henry because they’d had to call him something, but he’d never felt like a John Henry. When he was thirteen, he’d taken the name of Bracewell after a local war hero who was being feted about that time. The Ridgeway had come from the department store. He’d rather liked that touch. As soon as he’d been old enough, he’d had the name made legal.
Now he wandered back out to the kitchen and lit the burner under the pot of day-old coffee. With his face in traction for so long, he’d had to give up cigarettes. Alcohol didn’t mix with too many of the drugs he’d been on in the hospital, so he’d cut down on that vice, too. Mostly, he made do with bad coffee. Black as tar and strong enough to float an F-18. Sooner or later the stuff would probably eat a hole in his gut, and he’d wind up back in a hospital bed. He’d sworn never to set foot in another hospital. The day he’d walked out a free man, he’d sworn the only way anyone would ever get him back in another hospital was feetfirst, in a Ziploc bag.
He’d sworn a lot of things when he’d learned that if he so much as pulled a single G, his whole carcass would probably self-destruct.
His flying days were over, but what the hell—he’d survive. If there was one thing Brace had learned about himself over some forty-three years, it was that he was too damn mean to die young.
In the Hunt’s main living room, paneled in pickled cypress and decorated with an eye more to comfort than style, he turned on the TV and slid a video in the VCR. He poured himself a pint-size mug of thick coffee and settled down to watch an old World War II training film.
The P-51. Now there was one sweet plane! Yawning, he slipped farther down into the deep leather-covered chair. The furnace cut in as the temperature fell. Outside, rain rattled against the tall windows as wind gusted against the northeast side of the house.
Half-asleep, he wondered if the woman had ever found the switch box. Probably hadn’t even thought to look. Most women wouldn’t know a switch box from a sushi bar. Keegan’s Maudie, of course, would’ve had everything ticking over in two minutes flat. But then, Keegan’s Maudie was one in a million.
His thoughts drifted aimlessly back to some of the women who had figured briefly in his own life over the years. By mutual choice they’d been strictly temporary diversions. Decorative, entertaining and willing.
And then, unbidden, his thoughts vectored onto a new heading, and he heard again Sharon’s voice saying to someone just outside the door of his hospital room, “Oh, God, I can’t stand to look at him! He can’t even talk! How do they know his brain still works? What if he never looks any better than he does now? He’ll have to wear a mask— Oh, God, what am I going to tell everybody? What am I going to do? No one can expect me to marry that!”
Sharon Bing. The sister of a man who’d been trying off and on for years to lure him into a business partnership, Sharon had been one of Pete’s most effective inducements. What had started out as a casual acquaintance had unexpectedly escalated into a high-octane affair. With a background in the airline industry—old P. G. Bing had once owned a small regional airline, giving young Pete and Sharon a leg-up in the business—Sharon had liked the idea of being married to the man who had tested and helped develop one of the Navy’s hottest flying machines. And Brace had thought, why not? He’d tried about everything else. Other men had taken the plunge and lived to tell the tale, so why not give it a try?
And then had come the crash. Hanging on to the ability to breathe had taken top priority for the first few weeks, but he was tougher than he’d been given credit for.
Eventually, Brace had discovered that appearances mattered a lot more to Sharon than he’d thought. She was a beautiful, brainy woman, and beautiful, brainy women could pretty much write their own ticket. He couldn’t begrudge her that. He sure as hell couldn’t blame her for wanting out once he no longer fit her specifications.
She’d let him down gently, he’d have to hand her that. About as gently as he’d let down the ATX-4. It had probably been the best thing that could’ve happened to him, he’d rationalized later. What did a guy who’d been flying solo all his life need with a wife, anyhow?
He still kept a picture of her—one of those glamour things, all heavy eyelids, pouting lips and plunging neckline, shot through a soft-focus lens. It helped to remind him, in case he was ever tempted to forget, of what could happen when a guy started taking himself too seriously.
It would’ve hurt a lot worse if he hadn’t been groggy from all those painkillers. An unexpected side benefit of having his face ripped off and then reconstructed—getting dumped hadn’t seemed all that important at the time.
Deliberately Brace pulled his thoughts out of the power dive and steered them back to the present. Which, at the moment, included a tall, skinny woman with stringy black hair, a gritty voice and the sweet disposition of a hornet with PMS.
Of course, he hadn’t been all that sweet himself. But dammit, Keegan had guaranteed him complete privacy in return for keeping an eye on things for a few weeks! All he needed was a quiet, private place to hole up while he weighed his options and made his decision. How the devil could a man concentrate with a bunch of nosy strangers dropping in out of the blue, staring at his face and asking stupid questions?
Dammit, he was not oversensitive! He didn’t give a damn what she thought, as long as she did her thinking somewhere else!
He’d give her a day, he decided. Two days, tops, but he doubted if she’d even last that long. A deserted island in late January, with the nearest shopping mall several islands away?
No way. If he knew women—and to his sorrow, he did—she’d be out of here before noon.
The old training film video droned on. Brace had watched it at least a hundred times. Yawning, he told himself he should’ve plugged in her phone, at least. That way she could call the marina and be out of his hair before she dug in too deeply.
First thing in the morning, just to be on the safe side, he mused drowsily, he’d run Keegan’s boat around to the other side of the island, out of sight. Just in case she took it in her head not to wait for Jerry to get out of school.
“Yeah. You should be so lucky,” he muttered. Yawning, he watched as the pilot of the P-51 taxied in for a perfect three-point landing, confident that no woman whose idea of a serviceable flashlight was a pink plastic gizmo the size of a lipstick tube was going to tackle a forty-horse outboard in unfamiliar waters.
Feeling the last of the tension seep out of the muscles at the back of his neck, he yawned again and told himself he might even offer to run her over himself.
Sure! Why not? And to prove what a sweetheart he was, he wouldn’t even make her beg.

Two
To a woman who had mastered the word processor, the food processor, elementary plumbing and the fine art of diplomacy under fire, there was nothing particularly intimidating about an outboard motor. Frances had watched the boy from the marina punch, poke, jiggle and shove and then steer with one arm crooked casually over the handle. And while this particular model was somewhat larger, the principles were probably pretty much the same. The main thing to remember, she reminded herself, was that once she got the thing cranked up, steering was in reverse. To go right, shove the handle left and vice versa.
As a precaution, she untied the lines before she began fiddling with the controls. It had occurred to her that once she got the engine running, she might have her hands too full to worry about undoing all those fancy little knots.
A bit of common sense was called for here. Luckily, common sense was her strong suit. Thanks to her brothers, Bill and Dennis, she had a basic knowledge of combustion engines. There was nothing particularly difficult about operating an outboard engine.
Or was it a motor? Bill had explained the difference, but she’d forgotten. She’d learned to make simple repairs on most household appliances, but she could never remember the names of all the little gizmos.
Once underway, the first thing Frances noticed was that aluminum on water reacted somewhat differently than did rubber on pavement. For one thing, it lacked gripping power. By trial and error, she managed to propel the boat into open water without coming to grief, and felt a warm glow of pride.
Really, this was no big deal at all.
The second thing she noticed was the poles, which had been stuck seemingly at random along the way, one of which was green, with a light on top, the rest being plain. Not so much as a hand-painted arrow pointing the way to Coronoke or Hatteras. She’d been so tired and so intent on reaching her destination on the way over the day before that she hadn’t paid them much attention.
Now, just to be on the safe side, she steered a wide course around each one. By the time it occurred to her that they might have something to do with marking a trail, every clenchable muscle she possessed was clenched, from her teeth right down to her toes. Three times she came within inches of plowing into a shoal and then had to fumble with the left-turn, right-turn thing.
Outboard motors, she decided, were designed either by or for a dyslexic. Her left-handed sister, Debbie, would have managed just fine!
As her destination drew near, it occurred to her that with no brakes except for an anchor that was stashed up under the pointy end of the boat, the good ship Coronoke might not be easy to park. A little test of momentum seemed indicated here. Praying she could start it again, she cut the power and carefully observed how long it took to come to a full stop.
Not too bad, she mused. But sideways? Where had that tricky little glide step come from? The handle was aimed straight forward.
Frances was still experimenting when her stomach began to growl, reminding her that her last meal had been a super-coronary special at a fast-food restaurant in Manteo early the previous afternoon. The fat content of all that beef, bacon and cheese alone had kept her functioning until now. However, a bowl of Fancy’s Fat-Free, Fiber-Filled Homemade Granola would be her first priority once she got back to the cottage.
After two more rehearsals a safe distance away from any visible obstacles, she managed to make a creditable landing at the marina without denting either boat or pier. Still slightly terrified, but extraordinarily proud of her accomplishments—considering that the last boat she’d skippered had been a rubber affair some six inches long in a claw-footed bathtub—she tied up at the pier, briefly considered tossing out the anchor for good measure and elbowed her way up onto the splintery wharf.
And then she quietly collapsed, breathing deeply of the cold, fish-and-diesel-oil-smelling air. In the distance a noisy truck rattled past, the first sign of life she’d seen all day other than the wheeling gulls that searched the dark waters of the harbor for scraps of food.
Not until the chill began to creep into her bones did she turn to the task at hand. Making several trips to her car, she loaded her various bags and boxes aboard and set out again, her mind on trying to remember which box held her coffee filters and which held her supply of granola makings.
Somewhat to her surprise the entire operation, practice maneuvers included, had taken only slightly over an hour.
* * *
Back on Coronoke, Brace stood at the end of the pier in his briefs and boots, oblivious to the raw, cutting wind, and ran through about six yards of gutter profanity. Dammit, he’d known the first time he’d set eyes on that woman that she was going to be trouble! In the first place, she had no business even being here! Keegan had sworn he would have the place to himself, otherwise he never would’ve agreed to the deal.
Evidently she’d bought his story about the lack of basic amenities. Damn good thing, too. If that hadn’t worked, he’d planned to hit her with a tale about hurricanes, tornadoes and man-eating mosquitoes and throw in a few alligators for good measure.
But dammit, why’d she have to go and steal his boat? He’d already made up his mind to ferry her back across to the marina. If there was one thing that irritated him more than a clinging, whining female, it was one of the superindependent types.
Brace had been shaving when he’d heard the outboard sputter a few times and start up. He’d gone racing down to the landing in his briefs and boots, face covered with shaving cream, in time to see her roar out of the harbor, hanging on to the stick like a chicken in a high wind. While he stood there swearing, the phone had started ringing back at the Hunt, and he’d raced back and grabbed it just in time to hear the disconnect.
Still swearing under his breath, he’d jogged back down to the landing, wondering what the devil was happening to his nice, private little retreat. No one was even supposed to know where he was except for the Keegans and Pete Bing.
He figured it was Keegan, calling to check up on things. Pete knew better than to put the screws on him at this point in their negotiations. Brace had left it at the “don’t call me, I’ll call you” stage. He still had a lot of thinking to do before he signed on with any outfit. Not that he had any doubts about Bing Aero. He had plenty, however, about the woman involved.
And Sharon would definitely be involved. Brace didn’t kid himself on that score. With Sharon, the bottom line came first; personal relationships limped in a poor second. The deal had been a straightforward one—cash on the barrelhead in exchange for a hefty bundle of stock in the privately owned corporation, a modest salary and an impressive sounding title. Eventually he would take over the design division.
It was a sweet deal for a guy who had never held down a desk in his life. Never wanted to, but now that his choices had narrowed down, it didn’t look all that bad.
Even so, he’d have to do some pretty serious thinking before tying himself up in a long-term deal. Pete had hinted at some of the experimental stuff they were doing, knowing that Brace would find it hard to turn it down, now that his test-pilot days were definitely over.
He’d been right. Brace had been up-front about the fact that he’d been approached by two other outfits and had asked for three months to make up his mind. That had been six weeks ago. The clock was still running.
And now this! Dammit, how the devil was a guy supposed to concentrate?
Scowling at the receding wake of Keegan’s red runabout, he tried to recall if he’d topped off the tank after the last couple of supply runs. Late yesterday, just before she’d showed up, he’d cruised around to the northwest side of the island to check out the three hunting blinds there. He’d run over to collect his mail, and the marina had been closed, and...
Brace swore again under his breath. The lady was beginning to get on his nerves! Thanks to her tricks, he was going to have to put one of the other boats in the water and get another outboard out of storage just to retrieve the runabout.
Stalking back up to the Hunt to finish shaving and get dressed, he told himself to cheer up. At least she was gone. That was the good news.
The bad news was that he’d been the one to chase her off, and he’d lied to achieve his ends. Even at his worst he’d never been much of a liar.
Right on schedule his conscience kicked in again. Until she’d come nosing around his private sanctuary with her holier-than-thou attitude, he hadn’t even known he possessed a conscience. So what if he hadn’t exactly welcomed her to the island? Dammit, it was for her own good! She would’ve hated it if he’d let her stay, and he’d have had to put up with her whining about the wind and the sand and the bone-aching cold. There was nothing here for a woman. Especially not for a woman alone. Women didn’t thrive in isolated outposts, they needed bright lights and lots of attention, neither of which was available on Coronoke.
And besides, dammit, she wasn’t his responsibility!
On the other hand, Keegan’s boat was.
Figuring she’d have had just about enough time to reach the marina if he’d left enough gas in the tank to get her that far, Brace grabbed a pass key off the board and jogged down the wooded trail to her cottage to be sure she hadn’t left behind so much as a single hairpin. Once she hit Highway 12, he didn’t want her to have any excuse to come back.
She hadn’t left a hairpin, she’d left a whole damn suitcase! About a years’ worth of supplies were still piled on the kitchen counter where he’d parked them the night before. By the time he found the toothbrush, the bottle of lotion in the bathroom and the gown tossed across the foot of her unmade bed, the tendons at the back of his neck were so tight his fingers wouldn’t even uncurl.
She hadn’t left. Dammit to hell and back. The miserable little sneak thief had stolen his boat and gone back for the rest of her gear! Hadn’t she heard a word he’d said?
So much for the gentlemanly approach. She wanted to play hard ball? Great. Let’s see how she liked his fast ball!
Working with practiced efficiency, Brace crammed her few scattered belongings into her suitcase, stripped the bed and crammed the sheets in on top of her clothes, then scanned the quarters for anything he might have missed.
He tossed her suitcase out onto the deck beside her laptop computer and stalked back inside for the groceries. She’d bought ‘em—she could damn well have ‘em! He only hoped she hadn’t stocked up on ice cream, because he could do without having his last clean pair of jeans leaked all over!
Although in this weather, the stuff might not even have melted. The temperature hung in the low forties outside. The house, which had been battened down since October, felt even colder.
Once again the conscience Brace hadn’t known he possessed kicked in. She must’ve worn her clothes over the nightgown to sleep in. No blanket in evidence. According to Maudie, most cottage owners provided a few summer-weight blankets, but evidently she hadn’t known where to look.
“Dammit, nobody comes here in the dead of winter, especially not a lone female!” He automatically excepted Maudie Keegan, who had once lived alone on the island year-round as caretaker. Maudie was a different breed of cat. She was a local, used to the treacherous Outer Banks weather, which could go from mild to wild in a matter of minutes; accustomed to being without power, sometimes for days on end.
A small, all but unrecognizable voice whispered that maybe he should give the woman a second chance—show her around, clue her in on the power situation, lend her a few blankets and show her where to plug in her phone—
No way. She might not appreciate it now, but he was doing her a big favor. She’d probably thought she was coming down to some nice sunny beach resort where everything was laid out for her comfort, from cocktails to hot tubs.
Some travel agent somewhere needed to have his license yanked!
Brace took one last look around the cottage before locking up and heading down to the boat with her gear. It took four trips to haul it all. Good thing she hadn’t come prepared for an extended stay!
But his conscience still wasn’t quite ready to roll over and play dead. She’d come all the way down here, expecting the standard beach resort, and he’d more or less chased her off. It wasn’t her fault—he blamed the guy who’d given her the key. Easing the small fiberglass boat away from the pier, he decided that instead of just kissing her off and good riddance, he would take the time to suggest she catch the Ocracoke ferry, and then the Cedar Island ferry, and head on down the coast until she struck summer. Jekyll Island, or maybe St. Augustine. Hell, why not go all the way to the Keys? Plenty of sunshine, plenty of company—perfect for a single woman looking for a good time.
But whatever she was looking for, she wasn’t going to find it on Coronoke. Not alone. Not in January. Not while he had anything to say about it!
* * *
Frances watched as the marina receded silently in the distance. After poking and jiggling every appendage on the outboard, she had reached the inevitable conclusion that she was out of fuel. There was a single paddle in the boat, and she was wielding it as fast as she could, but it wasn’t working. The harder she paddled, the faster the current carried her away from the island, and the only sign of life was seven pelicans lumbering past a few feet above the surface of the water.
Was there such a thing as carrier pelicans? Maybe she could drop a note to the Coast Guard in their pouch.
How could she have done anything so stupid! She, the practical member of the Smith family—the practical member of the Jones family, for that matter. The one who had always reminded her younger siblings to take along an umbrella and to keep enough spare change on hand to call home—the one who reminded her husband and her in-laws to take their vitamins every day and cut down on their intake of fat, sodium and refined sugar.
A small green-and-red plane droned overhead, and she stood up and waggled her arms. “Help! Down here! Send help!”
When her leather-soled loafer slipped on a patch of wet aluminum, causing the runabout to lurch, she sat down rather suddenly and gripped the sides. Really, she was beginning to feel a bit discouraged. Beginning to feel, in fact, as if she were the only living human being left on earth.
Which was absurd. She had merely run out of gas. She, who was known throughout her family for advising others never to leap without first looking, and never, ever to start the day without breakfast, had committed both sins, and now look at the fix she was in! Starving to death while she was being swept out to sea.
She was mentally measuring the distance to a low, marshy strip of land some thousand feet away, assessing her chances of making it to shore before she turned into an ice cube, when she became aware of a high-pitched hum, like the drone of a distant swarm of bees.
“Oh, help,” she whimpered. Twisting around, she saw not one, but two boats racing toward her from opposite directions. “Thank you, Lord,” she said devoutly. That water had looked awfully cold and deep and swift. “I owe you big-time for this.”
As for Uncle Seymore, she had a small bone to pick with him if she ever got near a phone again. There were one or two things he’d neglected to mention concerning his precious island hideaway.
Jerry reached her first. The other boat was smaller, slower, but still headed her way at a rapid rate of speed.
“What’ja do, flood ‘er?” the gangly boy called out. His lovely teeth sparkled in the pale shaft of sunlight slanting between layers of dark clouds.
“I haven’t the slightest idea, but it’s occurred to me that I might have run out of gas. Is that likely?”
He shrugged. Pulling alongside, he slung a line onto the runabout and stepped aboard, reaching for the red tank near the stern. Frances had never felt so stupid.
Well...yes, she had. And quite recently. But that was another story. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble. And by the way, aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
Before he could answer, the other boat pulled alongside, and the same tall, scowling man who had tried to run her off the island the night before was there. She hadn’t gotten a good look at his face then, but there was no mistaking that tall, rangy physique.
Embarrassed, she stole a quick glance at him. Forbidding was the first word that came to mind. Mad as the dickens was the next. And yet there was something oddly compelling about the set of his features that had nothing at all to do with his expression.
He was scowling—or maybe it was a permanent condition. It occurred to Frances that it was probably a good thing Jerry had reached her first. She wouldn’t trust Flint-Face not to stuff her into a sack and throw her overboard.
“She ran outta gas,” Jerry said cheerfully.
“If she’d asked before stealing my boat,” Flint-Face retorted, “I would have warned her to check the levels first.”
Frances resented being talked around, as if she weren’t even there. “I’m sure you would,” she snapped. “You warned me about everything else. As for stealing your boat, it was the only one there, and I was told there was a boat for the use of the cottagers.” Without waiting for a response, she turned to the younger man. “Jerry, do you know anything about generators? Could I possibly persuade you to—”
“I’ll take care of it,” Flint-Face cut in. His voice reminded her of the ropes she’d used to tie up at the marina. Hard, rough, showing definite signs of wear, but none of weakness.
“Sure thing. He can check you out, ma’am. Prob’ly won’t need it, though. Power’s been real steady lately.” He switched tanks and offered to fill the spare and leave it at the marina to be collected later, and Frances shrugged and left them to it.
At least she was no longer in danger of drifting out to sea. Jerry had thrown out an anchor, and Flint-Face kept his motor idling against the current. She waited, appreciating the sun’s meager warmth on her cold backside while the two men fiddled with hoses and tanks and stainless steel fittings.
Finally Flint-Face shut off his outboard and tied his smaller boat behind her larger one, which meant, she surmised with an inward groan, that she would have the dubious pleasure of his company for the run back to the island.
Jerry veered off with a cheerful wave, sending a spray of icy water over the bow of the red runabout where Frances huddled. Sighing, she wiped the salt from her eyes. Thanks, Jerry, she thought wryly. I needed that. Having mastered so many new skills in a single morning, never mind that she’d run out of gas, her ego might have been inclined to come creeping out of hiding for the first time since she’d learned that her entire eleven-year marriage had been one giant fiasco.
“By the way, I don’t believe we ever got around to introductions, did we? I’m Frances Smith Jones.” She addressed the lean, rigid back, which was bent over the controls.
Silence.
Fine! If he wanted to remain anonymous, that was just fine with her. If there was one thing she was no longer interested in, it was men. Not under any circumstances. Not in this lifetime!
The outboard sputtered and caught again. As it settled down to a steady roar, the tall, scowling man turned and seated himself in the stern, facing her. It occurred to Frances that his eyes were exactly the color she’d always imagined an iceburg to be. Clear gray, without a glimmer of warmth. Every bit as hard as flint, if not as opaque.
As for the rest of him, it was...interesting, she decided. Jaw far too aggressive, cheekbones far too angular—there was something odd in the angle of them, too, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. As for his mouth, at the moment it looked as if he’d just bitten into a lemon. She was tempted to smile at him, just for meanness.
His nose was beautiful. Under the pale, watery sunlight, she could see a fine network of scars on the left side of his face, but before she could even wonder about it, he said, “Ridgeway. What the hell did you think you were doing, stealing a boat when you don’t even have sense enough to check the levels?”
Quite suddenly the headache she’d been ignoring all morning clamped down like a hat that was three sizes too small. Through clenched teeth, she said, “I didn’t steal your boat, Mr. Ridgeway. I borrowed it. I was told on good authority that the boats were for the use of the cottage owners and renters. As for checking levels—I assume you mean the gas tank—you’re right. I should have checked. Next time I will. I seldom make the same mistake twice.”
He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again and looked away. Fortunately the roar of the outboard precluded any further conversation, which gave Frances plenty of time to wonder what the luggage she had left back at the cottage was doing in the boat they were towing.
And then they swerved sharply and headed toward the marina. “Wait!” she yelled above the noise. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“The marina!”
“But I’ve already been there! I want to go back to the cottage!”
“No way, lady. Come back in a few months.”
It was impossible to argue over a roaring outboard. Irked beyond bearing, her head pounding furiously, Frances crawled back to where she could make herself heard. She jammed her face as close as she dared and yelled, “Listen, I don’t know what your position on Coronoke is—head jackass, at a guess—but my uncle owns that cottage, and he gave me the key and told me I could stay there until I’m good and ready to leave! It’s not my fault that this Maudie person I was supposed to check in with is in Utah, but Maudie or no Maudie, I’m here to stay! So you can just damned well take me back to Coronoke right now, or I’ll have you brought up on charges of—of— Well, I’ll think of something!”
If he weren’t so damned ticked off, Brace might have found her amusing. She wasn’t as old as he’d first thought. Nor as unattractive. Although, at the moment she looked as if she’d been drawn through a keyhole backward. Opinionated women were not his favorite species, not even when they had eyes the color of bruised violets and a mouth that looked naked and vulnerable and—
Brace swore silently. Maybe he hadn’t recovered as fully as he’d thought from having his broken carcass plowed into a cornfield along with several million dollars’ worth of twisted metal.
Abruptly he changed direction. The woman, who’d been kneeling at his feet, yelped and would have fallen hard against the gunwale if he hadn’t caught her with one arm.
Against a background of salt water and exhaust, she smelled like cut grass and flowers—sort of spicy and green. She felt like a bag of bones, even in a down-filled parka.
“Sorry,” he muttered, pushing her away. He checked the boat he was towing, more as an excuse to look away from her face, which was entirely too close, than for any other reason.
Even over the roar of the outboard, he could hear the ragged intake of her breath. It occurred to him that his own was none too steady. It was a crazy reaction. He put it down to being celibate too long.
What the bloody hell had happened to all the peace and quiet he’d been promised? This place was supposed to be so far off the beaten track, nobody but duck hunters came near it between January and March. Maudie had warned him he’d be talking to Regina, the resident raccoon, before he’d been there a week. It had sounded like just what the doctor ordered.
And now, thanks to his eagerness to get rid of Ms. Smith Jones, she had about half a dozen loads of gear to haul back up to her cottage, and with his newfound conscience dogging his heels like a blasted shadow, he was going to have to offer to help her haul it.
The only bright spot on the horizon was that she obviously hated like the very devil to accept his help. Pride stuck out all over her, like quills on a porcupine. It nearly killed her to let him carry the biggest box and her overnight bag. Watching her stiff backside as she marched primly up the path before him, he almost smiled.
But not quite.
Brace knew almost as much about women as he knew about planes. During his stunt pilot days he’d been considered something of an expert. On both. It went with the territory. At the time, he’d been young enough to find studhood amusing. Without even trying, he’d collected more groupies than the star of whatever low-budget epic he happened to be stunting for, and as often as not the film’s female lead headed the pack.
It had been during that period in his career that he’d met Pete and Sharon Bing, a brother-sister team who were just getting started as builders and designers of small specialty aircraft. They’d designed those special choppers for the night-fighting scene in Killing Territory. Sharon had let him know then she was interested, but at the time Brace had been too busy sampling what Hollywood had to offer.
After he’d left Hollywood, finished his engineering degree and started testing for a major government contractor, he’d found somewhat to his amusement that neither his bank balance nor his sex appeal had suffered to any great degree. But by then he’d been older and a lot more selective. By then, too, the world had become a more dangerous place.
That was about the time when Sharon Bing had reentered his life. They’d started going out together. After three months he’d asked her to marry him. Or she’d asked him. Later he was never sure which one of them had brought it up. But the sex had been good, which made two vital interests they’d shared.
It wouldn’t have lasted past the honeymoon. They’d already had that. Some men were husband material—some weren’t. Now, thanks to his recently remodeled physiognomy, he no longer had to worry about it. Most women were turned off by his scars, but a few were turned on in a way that made him angry and uncomfortable. It never seemed to occur to either type that in spite of some extensive reconstruction, he was still the same man inside. Not that he’d ever pretended to be any great bargain.
“One more trip,” the tall brunette announced as she set the first load down on the screened front deck. “I can handle the rest, thanks.”
He hadn’t offered. Now, perversely, he insisted. “I’ll get the rest,” he growled. “Go inside and get warm.”
“First, I’m afraid you’ll have to show me how the generator works. I don’t want to risk another disaster so soon. I usually try to hold it down to one a day.”
The generator. “Look, lady—ma’am—Ms. Jones—”
“Frances. Frances Smith Jones.”
“Right. Look, about the generator, you don’t need to bother. The power’s working now.” Actually, there hadn’t been a full power outage since he’d arrived on the island. A few blinks and a brownout or two when the wind kicked up. Tough on compressors, but as everything on the island was rigged with trip-out switches, it was no major deal. “All you have to do, Ms. Jones, is throw the breaker. The box is behind that door. You want me to do it for you?”
His arms were crossed over his chest, and so were hers. It occurred to Brace to wonder if she was as skilled at reading body language as he was, and for some reason the notion amused him.
She stood her ground like a veteran, though. He’d give her full marks for guts.
“I’m perfectly capable of dealing with a switch box, Mr. um... But perhaps you’d better show me about the generator just in case.”
“They’re only used for backup. You won’t be here long enough to need it.”
An arc welder couldn’t have thrown off any more sparks than her eyes did. Blue fire. Lavender blue fire. Unfortunately, to a man who’d made a career of living dangerously, it was a sure turn-on.
Brace took two steps back, his own eyes growing wary. Oh, no. No way was this woman going to get to him, lavender blue eyes, long legs, wide, soft, vulnerable mouth or not. He needed a woman right now like he needed another hole in his head.
Or another plate in his skull.
“Let me know when you’re ready to pack it in, Ms. Jones. I’ll run you over to the marina. That way we’ll both be sure you get there in one piece,” he said, one hand on the doorknob.
Frances smiled sweetly. “You’re too kind,” she said through clenched teeth as he quietly closed the door.
Kind. Yeah. Sure he was.

Three
By evening the clouds had moved in again. The wind howled like a roomful of tomcats, but at least the rain held off. Frances gulped down two more aspirin, eyed the sacks of staples still waiting to be put away and decided that if her sinuses didn’t stop giving her fits, she was going to trade them in on a new set. Evidently, salt air and ocean breezes weren’t quite the panacea they were cracked up to be.
And another thing—she’d always heard that being on the water was a terrific appetizer. One more old wives’ tale shot to blazes. Her stomach kept telling her it was hungry, but when she offered to feed it, it rebelled on her. Nice going for a professional dietician. She couldn’t even tempt her own palate.
Maybe her headache had put her off her feed. The trouble was she needed to get started on proofing the copy she’d brought with her for Fancy’s Kitchen, her monthly cooking column—the last column she would write before her resignation took effect—and she couldn’t even bring herself to do that.
As for working on Fancy’s Fat-Free Favorites, her collection of low-fat recipes, she was already two weeks past her deadline. If she didn’t wrap it up and get it into her editor’s hands soon, the market would be flooded with low-fat cookbooks and her publisher would find a loophole in her contract and make her return her modest advance.
Her extremely modest advance. And she needed the money. She’d received a third on signing the contract, with another third promised once the final manuscript was approved, and the last to be paid on publication. She’d been so thrilled when they’d accepted her proposal—she’d only sent it in because her editor at the magazine had pushed her to do it. He’d liked the idea of having a published author doing his food column, and Frances had liked the idea of anything that would take her mind off her dismal home life.
And now here she was, with nothing but time on her hands—no carping demands, no whining complaints, no dirty dishes, unmade beds and un-run errands waiting for her attention the minute she stepped through the front door. No reason at all not to dig in and get the job done, other than that she felt like the very devil.
Maybe she could sell her publisher on another idea—Fancy’s Recipes From Hell.
By evening she hadn’t seen a single soul. Evidently, she and Flint-Face were the only two people on the island. Not a particularly happy thought. What was his name, anyway? Racetrack? Railway? Bridgeman?
Whatever.
Frances had never been particularly gregarious—actually, she’d never had time to consider whether she was or wasn’t—but she wasn’t exactly a hermit, either. The eldest of five children, she was used to being surrounded by people. Her mother had died when she was seventeen, and Frances had been forced to curtail her own modest social life, postpone her plans to enroll at the university and settle for day classes at the local community college for the first few years.
Not that she’d regretted it for a single moment. At least, not after her initial disappointment. Home had always been a noisy, cheerful place, constantly overrun with family, friends and friends of friends.
Some of them very special friends, she thought in a rare mood of nostalgia as she stirred herself a cup of cocoa, set it aside untouched and drifted across to stare out the dark window. Twice—once when she was eighteen and again when she was twenty-one—she had come that close to getting engaged. By that time, her father, a research scientist involved in a lifelong love affair with the parasitic plants of various tropical regions, had more or less abandoned them.
Oh, financially they’d been secure enough, except for the threat of ever-rising property taxes. The house had been paid for, Frances had always been an excellent manager, and they’d all found after-school jobs as soon as they’d gotten old enough. But as long as her father had remained out of the country—and he’d shown no signs of coming back home—they’d remained her responsibility. A package deal, as she’d laughingly told Paul, a fellow day student who had been on the verge of proposing at the time.
He hadn’t. Instead, he’d started going out with her best friend, Carol, and when Carol had discovered she was pregnant, Paul had suddenly found it necessary to check out a job offer on the West Coast. He had never written, never called, never returned. Frances had been with Carol when her baby was born. She’d done her best to console her after she’d put it up for adoption, still feeling guilty for having introduced her to Paul in the first place, but secretly relieved at having escaped herself.
Three years later she had felt obliged to warn another contender. The children were older by then. She’d finally been able to transfer her few transferable credits to the university, but she was still the acting head of the family. So she’d told Adam about her absentee father and seventeen-year-old Debbie and sixteen-year-old Reba and the twins, Bill and Dennis, because Adam was mature enough to appreciate family responsibility. He was entirely different from Paul. A lawyer with political interests, he was older, more serious, and besides, they were head over heels in love, which was why he’d been able to talk her into moving out of the dormitory and into his apartment.
Duly warned, Adam had decided that, while he was still more than willing to share his apartment—and incidentally, his bed—it would be a bad career move at this point in his life to saddle himself with a family.
Frances remembered smiling until she thought her face would break, furious with herself for being so blind. Twice she had fallen in love. Twice she had given her trust. Both times she’d been dropped at the first hurdle, her confidence in her own judgment badly shaken.
Learning to trust again hadn’t been easy, but four years later, as a newly graduated nutritionist employed at a small private hospital, she had met Kenneth Jones. The first thing that had impressed her was the fact that he seemed so devoted to his parents. Her own family by that time had outgrown the dependent stage, but she’d been forced by circumstances into a position of responsibility for too many years. It had become a habit.
Her father, had he still been alive, would have appreciated Kenneth, she thought with bitter amusement. She hadn’t known until it was far too late how much her late husband had in common with the parasitic plants Dr. Smith had spent the last years of his life studying.
“Oh, this is depressing!” she muttered. Why in the world was she wasting time wallowing in past misery?
Refocusing her mind on her current misery, Frances swallowed a few gulps of the lukewarm cocoa and forced down a slice of toast. Her stomach threatened rebellion. Change of water, she told herself. Or too much greasy junk food on the trip down. There were times when she devoutly wished she didn’t know beans about food. There came a time in every woman’s life when she desperately needed to indulge herself in something utterly wicked, even if it was no more than an overdose of saturated fat, refined sugar, bleached flour and a bushel basketful of assorted chemicals.

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